Let’s face it: email kinda sucks. It’s not just about the writing: it’s also about the reading, the sorting, figuring out what the third reply in a series of fifteen messages should mean.
The good news is that artificial intelligence is now actually useful when it comes to the crushing hassle of email. Free up the hours you spend typing, reading, and worrying every week with these practical, AI-infused ways to tame your email.
Instant summaries of discussions
We were all copied to the 27-reply thread with the subject line: “RE: FW: Re: Quick Question.” Reading it is an act of pure madness. Don’t.
Use an AI assistant built into your email client, such as Twins in Gmail, Copilot in Outlookor features in services such as Superhuman And Shortwave—to generate a one-paragraph summary of the entire conversation.
In seconds you get the action items, the most important decisions and the final context.
Context-aware writing
You know what to say, but forming polite, professional and correct sentences takes energy that you don’t have.
Use your email service’s built-in AI response generator. With one click, your AI can craft a response, often 90% perfect, and all you have to do is polish it and send it.
Here’s how to do it with Gmail And with Outlook.
Batch prioritization
Your inbox treats all emails equally, which means the notification for a company-wide memo announcing the remaining Panera in the break room will hit just as hard as one from your biggest customer.
Use smart filter tools, such as SaneBox or Shortwavewhich use machine learning to sort email into custom folders such as ‘Urgent/Action’, ‘Later/Digest’ and ‘Newsletters/Reading’.
This frees up your primary inbox for only the messages that require immediate action from a real human.
Tone and style refinement
Have you ever written a draft while annoyed, only to read it back and realize you sound like an unemployed idiot? Fortunately, AI can be your sanity and personal PR manager.
Most generative AI tools include a tone control. Compose your email quickly, then use a prompt to change the tone to “professional,” “friendly,” or “assertive but brief.”
The AI restructures the language to strike the right emotional chord, preventing misunderstandings and eliminating the ‘draft-read-delete-rewrite-overthink’ cycle.
Automated follow-up
The sales process, checking in on the project, reminding your colleague: follow-up is an everyday but recurring part of the job.
Use an AI tool like Mixmax or follow-up features in your company’s CRM to automatically schedule a “nudge” email to send if the recipient hasn’t responded after a certain number of days.
Better yet, some tools use AI to suggest the optimal sending time based on the recipient’s past behavior, resulting in much less manual tracking of open loops.
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