AI comes to Gmail: What is ‘Help me write’ in Gmail and how it helps

Ever since the launch of ChatGPT in November last year, generative AI has taken the centre stage with big tech companies developing products to meet the ongoing technology trend. At the recently concluded Google I/O 2023, which is also the company’s biggest event of the year, Google detailed how it is integrating AI in its products and services. 

During the event, Google announced the ‘Help me write’ in Gmail feature based on a more powerful generative model. Using the feature enables one to generate a full draft of the email within seconds. The feature uses Google’s advanced machine learning algorithms to generate improved results.

“Let’s say you got an email that your flight was canceled. The airline has sent a voucher, but what you really want is a full refund. You could reply, and use “Help me write.’”

Next, simply type in the prompt of what you want, for example - an email that asks for a full refund. Hit on create, and a full draft will appear in front of you. 

“It conveniently pulls in flight details from the previous email. It looks pretty close to what you want to send.” In case one wants to refine the result, they can always do it. 

'Help me write will start rolling out as part of our Workspace updates in the coming months. It is likely that the feature will be available to both web and mobile users of Gmail.

To recall, Google launched the Smart Reply feature to Gmail in 2017. The feature offers short responses that one could select with just one click. Next came Smart Compose, which offered writing suggestions as one type in the email. 

“Smart Compose led to more advanced writing features powered by AI. They’ve been used in Workspace over 180 billion times in the past year alone,” the company said.