Google isn’t done putting AI into your inbox. On Tuesday at its IO 2026 developer conference, the tech giant announced the expansion of its “AI Inbox” functionality to Gmail, adding AI chat features. That means you can ask Gmail about things in your inbox instead of typing search terms.
The company says a powerful Gemini AI feature, called Gmail Live, will help you quickly find information buried in your inbox.
Maybe you need information about your upcoming flight, a dentist appointment, the door code of your Airbnb rental, or some information about an event at your child’s school, for example.
Previously, you would have to type keywords into the search box (or perhaps type in someone’s email address or domain) to try to narrow down your search. That doesn’t make emails easy to find, however, especially if the search term is something that’s found in every few messages.
“Gmail Live can answer pre-written questions naturally, answer follow-up questions, and respond when you need to interrupt,” Devanshi Bhandari, Gmail’s product lead, explained in a press conference ahead of Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, where the feature was first introduced to the public.
It’s another way Google is trying to show how its AI technology can improve real-world improvements in products used by millions of consumers, at a time when many outside the tech industry are questioning the value of AI, as new data centers are built on their premises, raising their energy bills.
Being able to identify something as simple as making it easier to find something lost in your e-mail inbox – an experience that almost everyone has suffered at some point – could be a real and fair use of AI … or at least, Google hopes.
Bhandari demonstrated Gmail Live to reporters, asking the tool a series of questions about items in the inbox, such as a child’s show-and-tell project and his class trip, as well as hotel and flight information for a trip to Detroit. Similar to using a standalone AI chatbot like Gemini or ChatGPT, Gmail users can ask these questions out loud in natural language, and the chatbot responds.
In the demo, Gmail Live also understood the nuances between things like “field trip” and “journey” and was able to jump from one topic to another, Bhandari noted. Also, AI can pull granular information from emails, like a hotel room number, or say which people you’re asking about, even if they’re not explicitly named.
The same voice technology also comes from its to-do list, Google Keep, the company noted.
Notably, Gmail Live doesn’t replace regular Gmail search — it’s just another option.
Google may have learned that not everyone is ready to experience AI only after it “enhanced” Google Photos with AI-powered search to bring back more. Google Photos later brought back the feature, making the use of AI optional after many complaints.
Gmail is also getting some new capabilities, including ready-to-send drafts, faster file access, and the ability to manage tasks by marking individual tasks as done.
Also, the AI Inbox experience, introduced earlier this year, will expand beyond Google AI Ultra subscribers to Google AI Pro and Plus subscribers. This allows you to see an overview of the tasks and items you may find buried in your inbox, all on one page.
The voice-powered feature of Gmail Live, however, will be released later this summer and will initially be limited to Google AI Ultra subscribers.
Find out more big news for Google IO 2026
Google Search as you know it is over
Google is updating the Gemini app to accommodate ChatGPT and Claude
Google introduces Gemini Spark, a 24/7 agent that helps you integrate Gmail
How to use the new Google information agents
If you shop through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
