Google is continuing its push to help you draft and rewrite your emails with AI—whether or not that's actually useful.
These features, powered by Gemini, are combined under the umbrella of the "Help me write" shortcut, and collectively act as an AI email assistant. Since last August, "Help me write" has been available to rewrite a message to be more formal, add more details if you think it needs more elaboration, or shorten up the draft if it feels too lengthy.
Now, Google is adding a new "Polish" option to the mix: The idea is to take whatever you've written, whether that be a fully-formed email or a rough draft, and, well, polish it up into an email you hopefully feel comfortable sending. It seems Polish's default is to make the writing seem more formal, so if you prefer a more casual tone, you may need to ask Gemini to rewrite it for you again. (Or, maybe, write the email yourself?) This feature works on both the mobile versions of Gmail as well as on the web.
Google is also updating the "Help me write" shortcut on iOS and Android. Now, when you write at least 12 words in your email draft, you'll see a new "Refine my draft" option appear on-screen. If you swipe on it, you'll pull up these AI rewriting features, including Polish, Formalize, Elaborate, Shorten, and Write a new draft.
These features, and "Help me write" in general, aren't available for all Gmail users. To try them, you need to be subscribed to Google One's AI Premium plan, which comes with Gemini Advanced. Alternatively, if your school enrolls in the Gemini Education and Education Premium add-on, or your company signs up for the Gemini Business and Enterprise add-on, you'll see these options appear in Gmail. It's the same for other Gemini features in Workspace, like having Gemini appear in your sidebar.
While these features might entice some to pay extra for the company's premium Google One plan, I don't necessarily see the appeal. Sure, if you write a lot of emails, the work may get tedious. But does outsourcing rewriting and editing efforts to AI really save you that much time? After typing out some notes, swiping through the options, and choosing "Polish," you probably could have written the email yourself. (And it wouldn't sound like a bot wrote it, either.)
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