Google’s attempt to integrate its Gemini AI into Gmail has produced a mixed bag of results, revealing a significant discrepancy between its capabilities and ultimate potential. While Gemini excels in certain areas, such as composing and summarizing emails, its performance in search-related activities leaves much to be desired. My experiences indicate a major disconnect between Gemini’s promised performance and actual reality, causing me to question its usefulness as a productivity tool at this time.
Promising Beginnings: Intelligent Replies and Summaries
After spotting the Gemini icon within my Gmail interface, my first impulse was to investigate the functionality. The AI bot, which had recently been made available to a large number of users through an update, boasts advanced search capabilities, smart replies, and a number of inbox cleanup prompts. The search functions, which I had assumed to be the most innovative, were less effective than expected, even though the other capabilities were quite promising.
Before entering into Gemini’s shortcomings, it is essential to highlight its strengths. I thought the smart replies and summaries were helpful, and I found them to be valuable additions. Having used ChatGPT for assistance with email composition and editing previously, I was blown away by Gemini’s exceptional performance in this area. The sidebar prompt interface made it simple to interact with the AI, and within seconds, I could tell Gemini to refine my emails, adding details and context, regardless of whether I was using my phone or a browser.
In addition, the summary feature was extremely useful. The “Summarize this email” button that appeared beside the Gemini star icon provided clear overviews of email threads, including specific action items. Gemini consistently provided clear and succinct summaries during my testing, enabling me to rapidly grasp the key of a conversation without going through lengthy threads. This feature alone drastically decreased the amount of time needed to stay on top of my email communication.
The Letdown: Search Inadequacies
Despite smart replies and summaries being quite promising, my attention was drawn to the possibility of Gemini revolutionizing email search. I envisioned an AI that was capable of diving into communication patterns, popular topics, and contact management, going beyond simple keyword searches. With approximately 650,000 emails indexed and archived in my Gmail account, I regarded Gemini as a potent resource for extracting the insightful value hidden within.
However, I was rapidly disappointed to learn that Gemini’s searching abilities were severely deficient, producing findings that were often inaccurate or irrelevant. I received a list of contacts with whom I had barely communicated when I requested Gemini to identify the individuals I had emailed the most frequently in a certain month or over the course of the year. Although it is conceivable that the bot was exclusively focusing on the most recent interactions, my requests specifically stated that the information be obtained from particular time frame, such as 2025 and the month of May.
In a similar vein, Gemini failed to separate authentic interactions from unsolicited spam when asked to identify the topics I had discussed most frequently in my emails. The bot simply included a list of email newsletters, disregarding the fact that I hadn’t actively engaged in a dialogue on any of those subject matters. Underlying flaws in Gemini’s comprehension of email communications were to blame for this error, which was caused by its inability to distinguish between the emails I received and those I had actually answered.
I was hoping that Gemini may make the process of sending bulk emails easier. I asked Gemini to write an email to my most frequent contacts informing them that I would be away soon. However, the AI once again only identified the people who had sent me the most emails, as opposed to the ones to whom I had reacted.
Gemini’s composed email was satisfactory in terms of content; however, it also failed to automatically add each recipient to the “Bcc” box, which is an essential functionality. This would have made it easier to send a single-click personalized message to a large group of individuals. Instead, Gemini forced me to manually add each recipient, negating any time-saving measures that I had anticipated.
Inbox Cleanup: A Mixed Bag
Gemini’s professed capacity to assist with inbox management also turned out to be erratic. When I used my iPhone to ask the bot to find outdated emails that include huge attachments, it displayed every email containing an attachment, regardless of its age or size. This nearly made the feature useless, as I was seeking to specifically find and remove large, outdated attachments.
Gemini occasionally failed to respond to my requests at all. The bot responded with a dismissive “I can’t help with that” when prompted to “Show me the emails with the largest attachments.” This lack of functionality was very frustrating, as it highlighted Gemini’s inability to complete even the most essential email management tasks.
Gemini did manage to produce useful results on rare occasions. For example, the prompt “Show me all emails with an attachment from May 2024” successfully identified the proper messages, allowing me to instantly delete them. However, these cases were few and far between, with Gemini’s inbox cleaning functions only working about 25% of the time.
In the end, Gemini does not live up to its promise of developing a smart assistant. While email users have had access to search capabilities for quite some time, I believed that Gemini could revolutionize my workflow. However, Gemini appeared to only search among the most recent emails.
Limited Scope: A Focus on Recent Emails
One of Gemini’s most obvious limitations is its apparent inability to search beyond the most recent emails. The bot consistently returned results from the previous week or two, even when my prompts suggested a larger time frame. This narrow emphasis significantly limits Gemini’s value because it impedes users’ access to the expansive archive of data stored within their email accounts.
For example, Gemini only mentioned two messages from the previous week when I requested it to find urgent emails, ignoring potentially crucial communications from earlier dates. Likewise, the bot only located four messages from the preceding two months while being asked to find emails with shipping labels, despite the presence of dozens more.
This propensity to give recent emails priority suggests that Gemini’s search capabilities are constrained by a limited indexing system or a lack of access to older data. Regardless of the reason, Gemini’s capacity to deliver thorough and accurate search results is significantly hampered by this restriction.
A Work in Progress
It is evident from my experiences that Gemini in Gmail is still in the infancy of its development. Google is actively adding new features and refining the AI, most likely in response to user feedback and data analysis. However, Gemini’s performance is now too inconsistent and unreliable to justify its application in my daily work as it currently stands.
I have faith that Gemini will eventually develop and fulfill its capabilities. However, until the bot can consistently deliver accurate and relevant search results, I will be reluctant to rely on it as my main email management tool. I long for the tool promised on the tin: improving productivity, and delivering work reliably every time a prompt it entered.