Marketing has transformed more in the past three years than in the previous 50, and one of the driving forces behind these seismic shifts is artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, 45% of marketing teams now leverage AI in their email campaigns—and 31% plan to invest more in AI and machine learning this year.

Recent headlines reveal that AI-generated summaries from major players like Apple, Gmail, and Yahoo are coming to top email clients to enhance their users’ inbox experiences. These updates will take shape in a few different ways—like AI-powered preview text in Apple Mail and one-click AI summarization in Gmail.

Let’s dive into what each of these updates means for email marketers.

Google introduces “Summarize this email” feature in Gmail with Gemini update

At Google I/O in May 2024, Google introduced several new enhancements to Gemini 1.5 Pro (previously Bard) for Google Workspace, with one notable addition being the ability to summarize an email or an email thread.

Users with Gemini activated in Google Workspace can now summarize email content with a click of a button, or by using the Gemini sidebar in Gmail. This works with a single email or across an email thread.

Source: Google

This works to help users save time by sorting through messages to gather the most important points, addressing the occasional difficulty of searching for emails in your inbox.

While this likely won’t have as much of an impact on email marketers as the new deliverability rules from Yahoo and Gmail, here are some points to consider:

• Accuracy of AI-generated summaries. Due to the nature of AI, there may be instances where the generated summaries are not entirely accurate. Factors such as the complexity of the content, nuances in language, or contextual understanding can influence the accuracy of AI-generated summaries. That’s why, as a sender, you should ensure your emails…
• Have a strong, clear email hierarchy. Hierarchy in email design reinforces visual importance, aiding subscribers in quickly consuming content. While the specifics of how Gemini generates AI summaries from emails are unclear, structuring headings semantically not only aligns with email design best practices but also enhances your email’s overall effectiveness.
• Adoption for Gemini. Although we don’t have insights on how many Google Workspace users have this feature enabled, comparing downloads between ChatGPT’s mobile app and Gemini shows a significant disparity in popularity (3.25 million downloads vs. 633,000 downloads in February 2024, respectively). Plus, it’s behind a paywall, making the barrier to entry higher for potential users.

Speaking of adoption, privacy and data will likely be an ongoing concern for users considering Gemini. Especially with the third-party cookies phaseout on the horizon, we wonder if this will influence how users perceive and adopt AI-driven features like Gemini’s email summarization…

Apple to release AI-powered email summaries with iOS 18

At Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in early June 2024, Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence, its name for a new suite of AI features. This includes updates to its native Mail application like Priority Messages (a new section showing most urgent emails), on-device categorization of emails (e.g. primary vs. promotional messages), smart email replies, and AI-powered email summaries.

These enhancements will be released as part of iOS 18 later in Fall 2024.

Instead of previewing the first few lines of each email across a user’s inbox, they will be able to see summaries without needing to open a message, right in the inbox. For longer threads, users can see a summary of the most pertinent details with a single tap.

Source: Apple

The immediate question for most email marketers is whether the valuable real estate of the email “envelope”—comprised of the sender name, subject line, and preview text—will still hold its importance. We won’t know for certain until iOS 18 is released, but we’ll be looking out for the following:

• Will this impact all emails? Apple’s examples of AI summaries so far appear to include only emails from the primary inbox, not necessarily promotional emails. Therefore, it’s unclear whether this feature will affect all emails a subscriber receives.
• How accurate will the AI-powered email summaries be? Just as we highlighted earlier with Gmail’s Gemini, there’s a chance that an AI-generated summary of an email is inaccurate.
• Can users opt-in and opt-out? If users can turn AI email summaries on or off, determining the impact will be challenging. A segmented approach, identifying subscribers who open emails on Apple clients and devices, and comparing engagement before and after iOS 18, can potentially provide insights.
• What will adoption look like? The Apple Intelligence system requirements are quite restrictive, especially for iPhones. While iOS 18 will work on devices released from 2019 onward, Apple Intelligence features require either an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max.
• Can the subject line and preview text still work together? The short answer is yes—but you’ll need to be tactical about it. Tracie Pang, Litmus’ Email Marketing Manager, notes that “not all subject line and preview text combinations will make sense for Apple Mail recipients. Therefore, it’s essential to prioritize your subject line to ensure the overall message gets noticed.”

Consider the following combination:

The preview text works as a standalone and in conjunction with the subject line.

“It’s crucial to provide sufficient information in your email to enable the AI email summary to accurately reflect your message. This will help ensure your subscribers don’t miss the overall goal of your email.”

Carin Slater, Litmus’ email developer, reinforces some key email marketing best practices:

“If you’re writing good emails where your subject line and your email body copy align this shouldn’t affect any of your metrics. However, if you were trying to use a surprise reveal strategy or (heaven forbid) pull a bait-and-switch strategy, this might mess with that.

I’d still recommend writing preview text as there are email clients where this will show up. And if you have a surprise reveal strategy, try using something like scratch-offs instead.”

Yahoo Mail enhances the inbox experience with AI-powered email summaries and more

Shortly after Apple Intelligence was announced, Yahoo unveiled AI-powered email summaries, which have already started to roll out in Yahoo Mail. This update is designed with ease of use in mind, with the insight that Yahoo Mail users check their email two to six times each day on average.

This new enhancement will show AI-generated summaries of emails, and once opened will include a summary of the contents in a bulleted list along with proposed actions, tasks, or responses needed.

Source: Yahoo

Next steps

User experiences will continue to evolve, and email will evolve alongside them. Apple, Gmail, and Yahoo are among the most popular email clients, however, when assessing what this means for your email program, the priority should be your own subscriber base—whether that’s with your ESP or a tool like Litmus Email Analytics.

Identify which clients are the most popular among your subscribers and tailor your strategy accordingly. Stay tuned for updates as we continue to monitor trends and provide insights!