The news: Google is testing a new AI agent, CC, to change how the workday begins. Instead of another app or dashboard, CC delivers a daily email briefing that summarizes information pulled from Gmail, Calendar, and Drive.
- The agent scans calendars for meetings, inboxes for threads that need replies, and documents for loose ends.
- It packages everything into a short morning email that includes calendar shortcuts and AI-drafted replies to speed follow-ups.
It’s an experiment in Google Labs with an open waitlist, but it reveals that productivity tools are shifting from passive storage to proactive orchestration. CC doesn’t wait for users to search—it decides what matters and surfaces it first.
Google says user data isn’t used to train its foundation models—a key assurance for enterprise customers.
Trendspotting: CC isn’t a novel idea.
- ChatGPT’s Pulse curates a morning update using chat history, memory, and user feedback, with a preview of what comes next.
- Samsung Galaxy phones have a Now brief, which provides personalized updates on weather, events, news, and more.
AI systems are becoming the first reader, editor, and sorter of information. Google has an advantage because it already owns email, calendars, and storage, which gives CC deep context and tight ecosystem control.
Caveats: Google warns that CC can make mistakes, which keeps it firmly in assistant territory, not autopilot. Access is also gated—the experiment is limited to users 18 and older in the US and Canada, with paid subscribers, such as Google AI Ultra users, prioritized.
What this means for brands: Email remains the highest-ROI channel. In February, 26.9% of UK and US marketers said email delivered their best ROI, ahead of websites and blogs (22.7%), SEO (19.2%) and paid search (16.1%), according to GetResponse.
As AI agents begin ranking and summarizing messages, the inbox shrinks and attention gets scarcer. Marketers who rely on email will need to understand tools like CC and optimize for agents—not inboxes—as AI assistants decide what’s worth surfacing. Catchy subject lines will no longer be enough to earn attention.