The magic of generative AI has reached yet another step.
The AI sphere was rather quiet and dull, and rarely made hypes beyond its own realms. But thanks to OpenAI with its ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has put itself in the spotlight.
This happens as generative AIs make headlines whenever it disrupted more and more industries beyond its domains.
What this means, more and more AI products are making their way into the tools people use often, or cannot live without.
Google is the tech giant of the web, and its answer to ChatGPT, is Bard.
This time, Google is making accessing generative AI even easier by integrating the technology into the world's largest email service provider: Gmail.
From Smart Reply “Help me write” in Gmail #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/u0ILECSMN4
— Google (@Google) May 10, 2023
First announced by the company's CEO, Sundar Pichar, during Google I/O, the feature called 'Help Me Write' leverages Google's generative AI technology to create emails from a prompt within the new message window.
What this means, users don't have to go to competing platform, like ChatGPT, or Google Bard's own website, to enter a prompt, copy the response, to then paste it back to Gmail.
With the integration, generative AI arrives to Gmail, allowing users to access the AI to help them write, all within Gmail.
To use this feature, the Gmail Help Me Write button is found whenever users start to compose a new email.
Powered by the same technology that powers Bard, the feature allows users to generate paragraphs of text based on their prompts. Tapping on 'Help me write' button on the bottom-right of the screen, will bring up a text box with suggestions for prompts inside it.
Users can also type in anything in their own words to instruct the AI on what they would like it to generate.
After that, they can simply tap on the 'Create' button, and let the AI do the rest.
Once the result is ready, the generated draft will appear in a new panel, which may contain sentences or paragraphs depending on their instructions.
Now AI-powered writing features in @GoogleWorkspace have been used over 180 billion times in the past year alone. #GoogleIO
— Google (@Google) May 10, 2023
And now, with a much more powerful generative model, we’re taking the next step with “Help me write” in Gmail. “Help me write” is rolling out soon as part of our Workspace updates. #GoogleIO
— Google (@Google) May 10, 2023
Initially, this feature is released to only a select users.
Those who wish to try it out, can sign up for Google's Workspace Labs, which will give them early access to testing new features for generative AI experiments.
Initially, there is a waitlist. But eventually, the feature is expected to roll out to all Gmail users.
The Help Me Write feature became available for Workspace Labs testers on the Gmail mobile app for iOS and Android but it is also available for desktop users.
It's worth noting that generative AIs have been plague with hallucination, and that sometimes, results may not be as intended.
This is why Gmail puts a disclaimer that appears beneath the AI-generated text, stating, "This is a creative writing aid, and is not intended to be factual."
Read: Google Bard And OpenAI ChatGPT 'Are Large Language Models, Not Knowledge Models'