Summary
- Gmail is rolling out a new ‘smarter search’ feature powered by AI, designed to prioritize the most relevant emails in search results, rather than just showing them in chronological order.
- The AI will consider factors like recency, frequently clicked emails, and frequent contacts to surface the emails users are most likely looking for.
- Users will still have the option to sort emails by ‘most recent’ if they prefer.
Google’s Gmail is a cornerstone of digital communication, boasting a 32 percent market share as of 2024. The platform has long maintained its position as one of the most intuitive email clients worldwide with its tight integration with other Google ecosystem apps like Gemini, decent storage, smart email reminders, detailed summary cards, and a lot more.
The platform already uses AI to power several tools and features, including Smart Reply, Smart Compose, ‘Help me write,’ and tabbed inboxes. Now, Gmail’s latest AI-enabled feature will make it easier for you to find the exact email you’re looking for in your overflowing inbox.
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The tech giant announced the new “smarter search” feature in a blog post today (via 9to5Google), indicating that Gmail will start showing users the most relevant results when they search for specific emails via keywords.
Normally, when you type in a word in Gmail’s search bar, it highlights all emails with the keyword in chronological order — from newest to the oldest. There’s nothing smart about this per se, with the user needing to manually dig in to locate the specific email they’re looking for with filters, sender details, or additional keywords.
You’ll retain the chronological search result option
With Gmail’s new upgrade, the platform will factor in “elements like recency, most-clicked emails, and frequent contacts.” This can help surface relevant emails that you might be looking for right at the top of your search results, regardless of when you received said email(s). Google is aptly calling the new Gmail feature “most relevant.”
Gmail isn’t gatekeeping the new upgrade, with ‘most relevant’ search results now rolling out for users with personal accounts globally on Android, iOS, and web versions of the email client.
It’s worth noting that users will still have access to sort search results in the order they were received. As seen in the image above, a drop-down at the top-left of the search results will let users toggle between ‘most recent’ and ‘most relevant’ emails.
