Google began adding its Gemini artificial intelligence technology to Gmail this week, offering to summarize email threads and suggest responses, among other paid subscription features. The new additions, which Google announced Monday in a blog post, are being made available for Google Workspace subscribers, including business and education, as well as consumers who pay $20 per month for Google One AI Premium. 

Google said its paid subscribers will have access to AI features on the side of Gmail’s website, as well as in a pop-up in its mobile app for Android-powered devices and iOS gadgets. Typically, the mobile option will let users tap a button at the top of emails to get a summary. After Gemini answers, users can then request more from the AI, including ideas for responses or data from documents stored in Google Drive. 

“You’ll have the information you need to quickly reply without having to ever leave Gmail,” the company said, noting that the system is built using “Google’s most capable models,” including Gemini 1.5 Pro.

Google’s moves to add AI to Gmail are part of a wider effort by the internet giant to weave the popular technology throughout its sites and services. Google’s May addition of AI Overviews for search results was widely criticized for sometimes echoing racist conspiracy theories and sharing dangerous health advice, such as telling users to add glue to pizza and to eat rocks. (Don’t do either of those things.) The high-profile screwups are ongoing, some reports have found, though Google has promised fixes.

Google is also adding Gemini to its productivity tools, for paying subscribers, including to Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides. Through its website, the company also offers a free version of Gemini that can provide basic text responses and create images. (For hands-on CNET reviews of generative AI products including Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, along with AI news, tips and explainers, see our AI Atlas resource page.)

Read more: AI Atlas, Your Guide to Today’s Artificial Intelligence

Google keeps adding AI features to its products because it’s increasingly facing competition from across the tech industry. Other giants, including Facebook parent Meta, Microsoft and X, have rushed to add AI features to some of their most widely used products, though they too have struggled with decidedly mixed results.

In some cases, for instance, the AIs have professed their love for users. Other AIs have created summaries of real-time events that didn’t happen. Even image-generating AIs have been widely panned after producing inaccurate depictions of people throughout history, and mislabeling real photos as having been made with AI. Still, companies are continuing to embrace AI as a necessary tool for the future. 

Though Google is still pushing forward with adding AI features, it’s locking some of them behind its paid subscription plans. Many users can try them for free for two months through Google’s AI Premium subscription, after which the service costs $20 per month.

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