Google is implementing the biggest overhaul of its popular Gmail webmail service in five years, bringing a new look, advanced AI-powered features and improved privacy.
Two years in the making, the redesign is intended to help Google better compete with Microsoft’s Outlook on the business side and modernise consumer email by bringing features from its Inbox email client into the main Gmail experience.
“This is an entire rewrite of our flagship, most-used product,” said Jacob Bank, product manager lead for Gmail, which 1.4 billion people use each month.
For consumers, headline features include the ability to snooze emails, as you would with an alarm clock, until a specified time or date, and what Google calls “nudge”, which displays messages with quick reminders that you haven’t responded to certain messages so that “nothing slips through the cracks”.
The smart reply feature, found within Google’s Gmail app on smartphones that suggests quick reply phrases based on the content of the email, will also be rolled out to the web. Google said its new AI-powered features required Gmail to be underpinned by its self-developed Tensor processing chips, and that it had also restructured email storage databases, unifying three duelling systems for syncing messages across devices as part of the overhaul.
Cosmetic changes also bring Gmail in line with Office, placing Google’s calendar, tasks and note-taking services within the same page as emails and alongside existing instant messaging options.
Google has also improved Gmail’s phishing protection, with new, more dominant warnings about suspicious emails, and a new “confidential mode” that allows users to send emails with expiration dates, prevent the forwarding, copying, downloading or printing of emails and revoke previously sent emails. Emailers can also dictate that recipients have to input a one-time password to read certain messages, in an attempt to ensure that only the intended recipient receives the information.
How this will work between Gmail and other email systems such as Microsoft’s Outlook.com or similar remains to be seen, but recent high-profile corporate data breaches have increased the company’s desire to lock down email.
While many of the new features will be rolled out to the consumer version of Gmail first, it’s clear that Google’s approach for its email service has changed from consumer-centric to business-centric as it pushes its commercial G Suite products to business. Google is accelerating its efforts to poach business from Microsoft’s dominant Office system of email and apps, using Google Docs, Gmail, calendar and Hangouts instant messaging systems. Analysts estimate G Suite generated about $2bn in revenue last year, 10 times behind Office.
One of the things holding G Suite back for businesses has been limited offline capabilities. Gmail now offers up to 90 days of emails offline, allowing users to search, write and manage messages without internet access in the browser.
The changes to Gmail will roll out over the next few weeks with consumers able to opt into the new look by selecting the “Try the new Gmail” option under settings once it is available. Changes to the G Suite system will require system administrators to turn on options before they are available to workers using the Google tools.
