The news: Google’s effort to place AI front-and-center across the internet experience is coming to your email inbox. The company is testing an AI overhaul to Gmail that replaces the inbox home screen with a to-do list based on recent emails, Google announced last week. The test is currently limited to a small group of “trusted testers.”
AI Inbox is intended to complement, not replace, the standard inbox, Google’s vice president of product for Gmail told The Verge. But planned features like the ability to mark suggestions as complete and AI integration with Google Calendar suggest that Google envisions a future for Gmail where the classic inbox and an AI agent work hand in hand.
Why it matters: Just as the internet search experience is being rewritten by AI, so too is email. Brands spent 2025 rebuilding their search marketing plans to appear in new discovery channels like AI chatbot suggestions. While Google hasn’t yet provided guidance on how marketing messages will fit into AI Inbox, a similar shift is looming for email.
Email is a low-cost, high-ROI channel for marketers that is one of consumers’ most-preferred ad formats; 59% of global consumers rated email as their preferred marketing channel, per a September 2025 Woo and Klaviyo survey. Social media was a distant second at 25%.
The big picture: The overhaul of a core pillar of internet use comes with an obvious question: Will the users bite?
Despite deep uncertainty and distrust about the need for and safety of AI tools, usage paints a different picture: OpenAI said ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users; AI tools are used daily by many workers; 38% of consumers have used AI for shopping; and half of teens use AI daily. These are still early days for non-enterprise AI use, and the habit appears likely to grow over time.
Google’s scale will help it further normalize AI usage. Gmail is the largest email provider with 1.8 billion users, and is the fourth most-used mobile app in the US, per Comscore. Even if users might not actively seek out new AI tools, Google’s deeper integration of AI into its services will increase the rate of adoption.
Implications for marketers: Although AI Inbox is still in-testing with unclear advertising implications, the experiment foreshadows a potential, major change for how users interact with emails. Email marketers should closely monitor Google’s updates and prepare to reimagine their email strategies should the inbox experience change.