Google has taken out the big gun in the war for AI that is raging at the moment. At last month’s I/O conference, the company showcased a whole bunch of new generative AI capabilities found in Google’s suite of Workspace apps.

As part of the offering, Google has a GhatGPT-style writing assistant for Gmail that can write your emails based on a short instruction.

“Help me write” write emails for you on Android

Gmail’s “Help me write” was first launched for the web as part of a limited preview, and now it’s coming to Gmail on Android.

In order to use the feature, you need Google’s Workspace Labs program, but first, you will probably have to be on the waiting list for a while. If you’ve been in the program before, Gmail’s AI-powered writing help should be ready to use on your account.

How it works

Like Bard or competitor ChatGPT, the feature creates pieces of text based on an instruction. One creates a new draft and a new button with an icon depicting a pencil with a star appears in the lower right corner.

If you click on it, a text box will appear with suggestions on topics and formulations. There you can write instructions to the AI about what should be in the email.

When you have written your instructions, you press the “Create” button, and the AI writes the email. When finished, the new draft appears in a new panel that can contain sentences or pieces of text depending on the instruction given to the AI. Below the text is a disclaimer where you can read: “This is a creative writing aid, and is not intended to be factual.”

On the right, there is an “Insert” button, which you can use to add the draft to your mail. Once you have done that, you can correct everything.

Below the disclaimer, there is a thumbs up and thumbs down button, where you can mark whether you are satisfied with the result or not.

Hone text drafts with different styles

In the lower right corner, you will find a button that opens a menu. With it, you can hone the draft in different styles such as “Formalize”, “Elaborate”, “Shorten” and “I’m Feeling Lucky”.

One can choose any of these to give the text a certain tone.

Gmail’s new AI Assistant works well whether you’re using it professionally or privately and don’t want to sit around writing long texts.

However, there seem to be errors in the AI’s sentences, so you still need to edit the text so that it becomes readable and correct linguistically and grammatically.