Gmail now learns from your behaviour, but there’s a catch
Gmail is getting a significant improvement to its search functionality. It will be more useful for users who have the correct settings.
The email provider has long provided a search function, even offering specific filters and parameters to help its users find the right content in an overflowing inbox, but despite these advanced efforts don’t make use of the platform’s full capabilities.
To this end, Gmail will now use machine learning to understand what you’re searching for.
Gmail search update
The new process is based on previous searches. This will allow Google Assistant to recognize the types of results that you clicked on using the keywords in your search bar.
This improvement will allow the search function to look beyond contact surnames as it did in the past. It will now consider full names and email addresses as well as their previous emails and how frequently they have contacted you.
To enable Gmail’s contextual search, you’ll need to enable Web and App Activity in your Google account, which may be problematic news for customers who are concerned about their privacy, and how their data is being used.
This is part of a series of updates that Gmail is rolling out to maintain its position as the most used email client, despite competition from Apple Mail and Proton Mail.
A notable recent change has been the redesign of Gmail’s interface. TechRadar Pro Reported at the time, the view became the only one available in November 2022.
