Newsletter
Google I/O 2017 has kicked off recently, and Google already started announcing features and services, like the one we’re here to talk about, the new ‘Smart Reply’ feature for Gmail. Well, truth be said, Smart Reply is not a new feature, but it is a new feature for Gmail. Chances are you’re all quite familiar with Gmail, Google’s email service, which is the most used such service in the world. Well, Google’s email app just got a bit better, as Google decided to add the ‘Smart Reply’ feature to the app, which will help you answer to email quickly with some help from machine learning, read on.
This feature has been available for Inbox by Gmail and Allo, and it now landed to Gmail as well. Google says that this feature “drives 12 percent of replies in Inbox on mobile”, which essentially means that quite a few people are already using it. This feature is landing on both Android and iOS, and it will essentially generate responses based on e-mail you’ve received. So, for example, if someone asks you whether you’d like to meet up on a Thursday or Friday, Gmail will suggest you answer like ‘Lets do Thursday’, ‘Thursday works for me’ and ‘Either day works for me’. Such suggestions, needless to say, can be quite useful if you don’t have the time to type a response, or simply don’t want to do it, you can respond by simply choosing a pre-determined answer, and based on the percentage of users that are already using it in Inbox for Android, this feature is actually rather good at predicting answers. Now, once you tap on the reply that you prefer, your email won’t be sent automatically, Gmail will let you further edit your answer if you want.
As already mentioned, this feature utilizes machine learning which Google talks about all the time, and thanks to its advance, the company is able to provide you with really useful answer suggestions that are not as simple as ‘thanks’, ‘yes’ or sure’. Google also mentioned that the feature will roll out in English first, but Spanish will follow in the coming weeks.