Google Adds Smart Replies to Gmail for Quickly Dashing-off Email Responses

Google has updated its flagship email service and added a new feature called Smart Reply in Gmail. According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who made the announcement yesterday at this year's Google I/O developer conference held in Mountain View, California, Smart Reply is now available to users of Gmail app both on iOS and Android.

Gmail Smart Reply for iOS and Android

Smart Reply offers a handful of contextually-aware, computer-generated email responses, allowing you to easily check incoming emails and then quickly dash off three- or four-word replies (think: “Sure, you're welcome,” “Working on it now” or “Yes, thank you”) right from your smartphone.

The way Smart Reply works is pretty straightforward. It uses Google’s prescient machine learning technology to suggest three potential responses to the emails and messages you receive. You can ignore them, pick one and then hit send, or add additional text to a suggestion if you like.

“Once you’ve selected one {of the three suggested Smart Replies}, you can send it immediately, or edit your response starting with the Smart Reply text,” wrote Greg Bullock, Software Engineer Gmail, in a post announcing the new feature on the official Google blog. “Either way, you’re saving time.”

Gmail Smart Reply Suggestions.

Smart Reply Usage Growing on Mobile

Google first launched Smart Reply as part of Inbox by Gmail, the company's standalone email app. According to the giant search company, usage of Smart Reply has grown significantly since it was introduced last year, accounting for about 12% of replies in Inbox on mobile.

Now that the impersonal-but-handy Smart Replies feature will be showing up in the main Gmail app for Android and iOS, it means a lot more people will likely try it out. You might as well get on board and test the tech giant’s progress so far with machine learning technology.

Apparently, the more you use Smart Reply to respond to your email correspondents, the more it learns about your communication style and the better the suggestions you'll get.

“So if you're more of a “thanks!” than a “thanks.” person, we'll suggest the response that's, well, more you!” said Bullock in the blog announcement.

Smart Reply rolled out in English globally, with Spanish smart replies set to arrive in the coming weeks. Google noted more languages will also be coming soon.