Google’s AI assistant, Gemini, is taking a more prominent role in your inbox with the introduction of email summary cards. These cards will automatically appear at the top of your emails, summarizing their content without any user interaction. This marks a significant shift in the way Gemini operates, as users no longer need to tap an option to summarize emails with AI.

When Gemini was first launched in the side panel of Gmail last year, it offered a range of features such as summarizing long email threads, drafting email messages, and suggesting responses. Now, Google is expanding the AI’s capabilities to work on your inbox, whether or not you choose to use it.

This update highlights the rapid infiltration of AI in the software and services we use daily. However, it’s worth noting that AI-generated summaries aren’t always reliable. For instance, when Apple introduced AI summaries for app push notifications, the BBC found that the feature made repeated mistakes when summarizing news headlines. As a result, Apple eventually paused the AI summaries for news apps.

Similarly, Google’s own AI Overviews feature for Search has also made mistakes, offering poor quality and inaccurate information at times. With the new email summary cards, Gemini will list a longer email’s key points and update the synopsis as replies arrive.

Despite these concerns, Google has noted that the feature won’t replace the option to manually click a button to summarize an email. This option will still be available as a chip at the top of the email and in Gmail’s Gemini side panel.

The email summary cards feature is initially available only for emails in English. Depending on your region, the summary cards may be turned on or off by default. For example, smart features are turned off in the EU, the UK, Switzerland, and Japan, according to Google’s help documentation. Users in other regions can choose to enable or disable the feature from Gmail’s Settings under “Smart features.” Workplace admins can also opt to disable personalization settings for users from the Admin console.