Apple Mail’s AI Summaries Absolutely Put Gmail to Shame

Apple Mail has long been the ugly duckling of email clients. While technically a workable app, it’s pretty sparse in terms of functionality. While the latest iOS 18 beta doesn’t address all of its shortcomings, it does make the client more desirable to use on iPhone 15 Pro models. In iOS 18.1, the iPhone maker built Apple Intelligence into the Mail app, enabling AI summaries, priority detection, and more. Some of these features have also made their way to the Messages app, such as the newly added smart replies. Sure, Apple Mail still has a long way to go, but boy, do these AI improvements make my daily life easier and give Google’s Gmail a run for its money.

What I like about Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 beta 1 is that it works from the moment you receive an email or text message. The technology analyzes the contents of notifications to show summaries on your Lock screen. So instead of just a preview of the first two lines of an email, the notification now shows a handier, AI-generated summary of the entire message. We’ve gone from “Hi, I hope this email finds you well” to “The sender is asking about your availability tomorrow” in the Notification Center. That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.

This feature also works when you receive multiple text messages or emails in a row. Before this update, the notification stack would show a preview of the latest message before expanding it. Now, Apple Intelligence analyzes all the messages I receive and displays a summary. This really helps me determine how urgent their topics are just by glancing at the Lock screen.

Speaking of urgency, Apple Intelligence now also supports a new Reduce Interruptions focus mode that analyzes and filters all notifications — not just those sent by the Mail and Messages apps. Combined with the aforementioned email and text message summaries, I find myself reaching for my iPhone less often and focusing more on getting work done. It turns out that most of the notifications I receive are irrelevant, and not all alerts are worth my immediate attention.

While it doesn’t completely solve the mess of notifications on iOS compared to Android, it does manage to squeeze out most of the problem. And it certainly beats the simple text in the first line or two of Gmail and Google Messages on Android.

Apple Intelligence summaries on the Lock screen are often too concise because they have to fit in notification banners. So when you actually view an email in the Apple Mail app, the AI ​​summaries behave differently. There’s a new Summarize button at the top of each email that gives a more detailed overview of the content.

What I especially like about this feature is that it also works with longer email threads, not just individual messages. This means I can now get a summary of the entire conversation, including emails sent and received. This is especially helpful when multiple people are in the same conversation and I just want to read a quick summary of what they’re discussing.

In this release, Apple Mail should also highlight urgent emails in the app in a new Priority Inbox section, but I haven’t been able to get it working on my personal devices. This feature uses AI to determine which emails urgently require your attention, such as reservation confirmations, meeting requests, and so on. Additionally, with a future software update, the Mail app should start automatically sorting emails based on whether they’re promotions, receipts, and the like.

This last aspect is partly reminiscent of Google’s closed Inbox app, and it’s a bit depressing that Google had similar functionality and never expanded on it.

Another time-saving feature I’ve been enjoying in iOS 18.1 beta 1 is support for smart replies in Mail and Messages. As the name suggests, this addition uses AI to analyze the messages you receive and suggest appropriate replies.

In Messages, replies are usually short and to the point, because that’s how people usually text. Mail, on the other hand, generates proper, long replies that fit the context. And when a sender asks about a specific issue, Mail lets me choose from auto-generated replies and write an email response based on my selection. That’s amazing, and a step beyond Gmail’s current approach to smart replies.

All of the features listed above are powered by Apple Intelligence and work offline for free. Like Writing Tools, Apple’s other AI features require an iPhone 15 Pro model running iOS 18.1 beta 1 or later. Likewise, those with an iPad or an M-based Mac running at least the first beta of iPadOS 18.1 or macOS Sequoia 15.1 can use these features. While I’ve demonstrated the AI ​​products in Apple Mail and Messages on iPhone, all of these tools are identical on compatible iPads and Macs.

Apple is just starting to roll out AI features. While iOS 18.1 beta 1 includes some noteworthy additions, there’s still a lot to look forward to. Some of the missing tools that will arrive later include emoji and image generators, ChatGPT integration, on-screen content awareness, and more. Nevertheless, the first batch of AI has already impacted my workflow and how I use my Apple devices.

For starters, I now keep Reduce Interruptions Focus Mode on all the time because I don’t want my phone to distract me when someone sends me a meme or Instagram Reel. Only urgent messages come through, and the rest live quietly in the notification center until I find a free moment to check them. Similarly, AI summaries for Apple Mail and Messages notifications convey the essence of those messages without requiring my full attention. This simplifies the thought process of whether I should dismiss or open a specific notification.

Because I work in media, I often get long press releases that aren’t always relevant to my expertise. The ability to summarize individual emails and entire threads is a real time-saver. I’m genuinely shocked to learn that Gmail free users don’t have a similar feature, while Google — on almost every other front — is ahead of Apple in the AI ​​race. While yes, you can use Gemini to summarize emails, it’s not built natively into the client, nor is it as easy to use. And Apple’s AI summaries in Mail and Messages notifications on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS have no equivalent on Android or Chrome OS.

Finally, smart replies also save me a bit of time because they usually have the options I’m looking for. Whether it’s in Messages or Mail, I no longer have to create a reply from scratch.

Given Apple’s private approach and Siri’s notorious reputation, I’m really impressed with the first batch of AI features from Cupertino. Despite being late to the AI ​​brain party and not having excelled in the field in previous years, Apple has managed to build AI tools that work reliably and are already saving me a fair bit of time. I’m curious to see how these features evolve in upcoming OS updates and how image and emoji generators will compare. It shouldn’t take long for Google to respond either, and this competition should hopefully push these features forward and make them even more useful.