How to get Google's new AI tool to write your emails

• Google is launching "Help me write" an AI-tool that can generate responses to emails in Gmail.
• Users can deploy the tool to request a refund for a cancelled flight, for example.

Writing emails is about to get a lot easier.

During 2023 Google's I/O conference on Wednesday, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, announced that the search giant is launching "Help me write," an AI-powered feature part of Gmail that can generate responses to emails.

In a demonstration of the tool, Pichai used "Help me write" to respond to an email saying that the recipient's flight got cancelled. The demonstrator selected the tool's icon and entered "ask for a full refund for this cancelled flight" in the prompt box. A response draft was generated in moments that included all the relevant details from the airline's note and requested the desired refund.

Not happy with the result? The tool has a button that allows users "refine" the letter, with prompts like "formalize", "elaborate," and "shorten."

During the demo, Pichai selected the "elaborate" option to "increase the chances of getting a refund," and the tool added lines like "I believe that a full refund is the only fair way to compensate me for the problems I experienced."

The feature, which was launched to "trusted testers" in March, is among the generative AI functions that Google is using to update its existing tools in the Workspace suite, Google's Aparna Pappu said at Wednesday's event. In addition to "Help me write," Google will integrate AI-features that can brainstorm and proofread text in Docs; generate images, audio, and video in Slides; and analyze data in Sheets, to name a few.

These features, which will be available to "trusted testers," will eventually be part of Google's "Duet AI for Workspace" service, according to Pappu. Google did not comment on when the tool will be available to the general public.

The new tool comes months after Google first launched the beta version of Bard, a ChatGPT rival, to select users as the AI competition grows among Big Tech companies.

Bard, however, did not launch smoothly: Google employees who tested Bard didn't think the chatbot was ready for launch, calling it "cringeworthy" and a "pathological liar." When Google demoed its chatbot in February, it made a factual error.