Skip to main content

Let Smart Reply answer that email for you — it's already doing it quite a bit

Image used with permission by copyright holder
Did that last email from your friend about this weekend’s plans sound suspiciously canned? Hate to break it to you, but that might’ve been because … it was. A little over a year after Google debuted its Inbox app, the internet giant has revealed that its Smart Reply feature is responsible for an impressive 10 percent of mobile responses sent in the app.Smart Reply, as its name implies, generates replies to incoming messages based on its contents, using artificial intelligence to send back a response so you don’t have to. And apparently, one out of every 10 messages are now being sent not by humans, but by the AI. This latest statistic was brought to light by Jeff Dean, a senior fellow in Google’s research group, at Wednesday’s AI Frontier conference in Santa Clara, California.

“What this does is it takes an incoming email message and then, given the text of the email message, it tries to predict what are likely responses you might want to give,” Dean said. “Now, 10 percent of mobile responses on email on the Inbox product are generated with this Smart Reply feature, so it’s saving people a lot of time.”

Of course, while 10 percent is a significant proportion, it’s unclear how many emails this actually translates to. After all, the Inbox app is not as popular as the Gmail app (though it does consistently find itself in the top 5o productivity apps in the App Store, and seems relatively popular on Android, too).

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Next year’s iPhone could get a surprise new button
iPhone 16 Pro Max in Desert Titanium.

This might sound funny, but it seems the biggest hardware updates for iPhones are reserved for the buttons. After adding an Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro, and then adding a Camera Control shutter across the iPhone 16 series, it seems the iPhone 17 Pro will introduce yet another take on a button.

As reliable leaker Majin Bu reports, Apple is reportedly testing “a new button that will replace the volume buttons and the Action Button that have been removed” on its next flagship.

Read more
New iPhone SE 4 details just leaked. Here’s what we learned
The iPhone 14 Plus's main Home screen.

The iPhone SE will finally get a new look, though it might still appear identical to a two-generation-old mainline model. This nugget of information comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who claims that the next “SE” trim could arrive early next year.

“The new model will resemble the iPhone 14, including the notch cutout at the top,” says the report. That means the upcoming iPhone could also be the last Apple smartphone with a physical home button with the integrated Touch ID sensor.

Read more
The best Motorola phones in 2024: Which one should you buy?
The Moto G Power 5G (2024) laying next to the Motorola Edge (2023).

Motorola, once the undisputed king of mobile, may have fallen from the throne, but it’s far from banished from the kingdom. While Samsung, Apple, and Google dominate the market, Motorola continues to carve out its niche with a lineup of impressive devices.

From budget-friendly options to high-end flagships, Motorola offers something for everyone. Its recent foray into foldable phones and commitment to delivering top-tier performance have garnered significant attention.

Read more