What is Smart Email? A Ready Reckoner on Email Assistant AI

What is Smart Email? A Ready Reckoner on Email Assistant AI

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Discover how AI-powered email assistants streamline your inbox, automate replies, and boost productivity with smart sorting, prioritization, and automation.
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Milagros Ribas
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Content Writer

Managing emails can often feel overwhelming, especially with the constant influx of messages we face every day. Smart email offers a solution to this exhausting problem—it’s an AI-powered assistant designed to simplify your inbox and make email management more efficient. But what is smart email, exactly, and how can it help streamline your workday? 

In this guide, we break down the technology behind smart email and share our top recommendations. We also discuss the key features to look for in a good smart email solution. 

Whether you’re looking to save time, reduce clutter, or boost productivity, smart email could be the key to a more organized and stress-free inbox. Read on to see it for yourself. 

Defining Smart Email

When we refer to smart email, we’re talking about a set of AI features and technologies that automate email writing, sending, and organization. 

While the exact definition of smart email can vary across platforms and the specific feature set you’re after, its core capability is the ability to mimic human cognition and, therefore, take suitable decisions and actions. 

Despite so much automation in the workplace, email remains a time-guzzler. Research shows that four in five (78.7%) employees dread opening their work email inbox. 65.1% have gotten into trouble over a significant email mistake, and 71.1% feel expected to respond to emails out of hours.

After a while, this starts taking a toll on your well-being, ability to focus, and productivity. That’s why smart email is emerging as a popular technology. 

By analyzing email content and context, these platforms can make intelligent decisions about which messages require attention and take actions (either autonomously or based on your rules)—reducing manual effort and allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

The Technology Behind Email Assistant AI Explained with an Example

Email assistant AI leverages advanced machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to help automate and optimize email management. Here’s how the technology works:

1. Natural language processing (NLP)

NLP is a branch of AI that allows machines to understand and process human language. In the case of email assistant AI, NLP enables the system to parse the content of your emails, including the tone, intent, and context. 

It can identify key details like dates, action items, or requests, and then figure out how to respond appropriately using its learnings through ML.

2. Machine learning (ML)

Machine learning allows the email assistant to learn and adapt over time. By analyzing your past interactions and external data (e.g., a knowledge base), the AI gains a good grasp of your communication style, preferred tone, and the types of emails that need attention.

Example:

You receive an email from a client asking for a project update: "Hi, can you provide an update on the project status?"

Thanks to NLP, the AI understands the intent of the message and extracts key details like the request for an update.

Meanwhile, using ML, the AI has looked at your past responses to similar requests (maybe you've used specific phrases like "The project is on track" or "We're waiting for approval") and learned your communication style.

Based on this data, the AI drafts a personalized response that matches your tone and style: "Hi [Client Name], the project is on track and we're awaiting final approval from the team. I’ll update you once I have more information."

NLP helps the AI understand the content and context of the email, while ML refines its ability to mimic your response style over time and respond using concrete data. 

The 8 Best AI-Powered Email Assistants in 2025

Now that we’ve explored what smart email is, let's take a look at the top AI-powered email assistants in 2025:

1. Gmelius

Gmelius is an AI-powered email assistant designed to transform Gmail into a collaborative workspace, particularly for teams. It seamlessly integrates with Gmail, offering a variety of tools that help you collaborate, streamline email sequences, and reduce errors. 

Gmelius' email reply assistant

Gmelius provides robust email automation features, allowing you to set custom rules for tasks like auto-replies, tagging, categorizing emails, and assigning conversations to the appropriate team members. It also enhances email collaboration with features like shared inboxes and shared email drafts.

A standout feature of Gmelius is its Email Reply Assistants, which automatically draft replies by analyzing your past conversations and communication style. 

The AI uses live data from your help desk and website to determine in real-time which emails need a response, proactively drafting emails without a prompt.

Key features: 

  • Email Reply Assistants that proactively drafts responses.
  • Shared inboxes and email delegation features for collaborative email management.
  • Kanban boards to organize workflows and analytics for data-driven decision-making.

#ProTip: Gmelius effortlessly integrates with tools like Slack, Trello, Zapier, Google Calendar, and more, making your workflow smoother and more efficient.

Pricing:

  • Free trial: 7 days
  • Pro: From $24/user/month (billed annually)
  • Growth: From $36/user/month (billed annually)

2. Motions Calendar 

Motions Calendar is an AI assistant that automatically organizes your day by prioritizing tasks and time-blocking your schedule using a personalized algorithm.

It optimizes your calendar, helping you focus on executing tasks instead of managing deadlines, and schedules meetings at the most convenient times.

Motions calendar

Pricing:

  • Free trial: 14 days
  • Individual plan: From $19/month (billed annually)
  • Business plan: From $12/user/month (billed annually)

Read our in-depth analysis of Motion AI Calendar to know more.  

3. Lindy AI Personal Assistant 

Lindy.ai is an intuitive AI platform that lets you create custom agents in minutes, no coding required. 

Ideal for customer support, medical scribing, and more, it streamlines your workflow by managing meetings, tasks, and emails. Like Zapier but powered by AI, Lindy integrates seamlessly with tools like Google Calendar, Slack, and ClickUp.

Lindy AI 

Pricing:

  • Free trial: 7 days
  • Pro: From $49,99 up to 5,000 credits
  • Business plan: From $299,99 up to 30,000 credits

For more on Lindy, check out our detailed Lindy AI Personal Assistant analysis.

4. Friday AI Email Assistant

Friday is an AI email generator powered by GPT-4. 

You can type in a simple or complex prompt, and Friday will generate an email for you. You can also use it to reply to past messages, run grammar checks, and rewrite emails. It comes with several prompting templates and multi-lingual support.

How Friday AI works

 Pricing:

  • Free trial: 3 requests only
  • 1 week: From $6.99
  • 4 weeks: From $29.99

5. Superhuman

Superhuman is a versatile smart email platform that includes inbox organization, smart search, auto-reply, auto-summarization, and 1-click scheduling. 

It integrates with your calendar to help you stay organized, while email tracking and analytics give you insights on when your emails are opened, allowing you to follow up at the right time.

Superhuman mobile interface

The “Auto Summarize” feature provides a one-line summary above every email, updating in real-time as new messages arrive. You can quickly understand the context of each email without opening it. 

With “Compose with AI,” you can turn short phrases into complete emails that sound just like you. Superhuman AI adapts to your writing style, creating personalized responses. Further, autocorrect ensures your emails are error-free by catching typos, punctuation mistakes, and other writing issues.

Key Features:

  • Email tracking and real-time analytics
  • Calendar integration for better time management
  • AI-powered composing and autocorrect for fast, accurate emails

#ProTip: Superhuman is designed for professionals who need to manage high volumes of email quickly and efficiently. However, it is on the pricier side and does not offer a free trial, so if you don’t handle a high volume of emails, it may not be worth it.

Pricing: 

  • Starter: From $25 per user/month 
  • Business: From $33 per user/month

6. Fyxer 

Fyxer is an AI-powered executive assistant that takes notes, drafts and organizes emails, and manages calendars. 

Fyxer’s natural language processing capabilities make it intuitive to interact with, whether you’re typing or speaking your commands. This AI assistant can integrate with calendars, email platforms, and collaboration tools like Slack, offering a seamless experience across multiple devices.

How Fyxer scheduling works

While it is great for basic task automation, Fyxer might not replace specialized tools like Asana for complex project management. It's perfect for individuals or teams looking to simplify everyday tasks but may not fully meet the needs of more detailed collaboration.

Key Features:

  • Task automation (emails, scheduling, project management)
  • Integration with popular apps (Google Calendar, Slack, email)
  • Customizable workflows based on user preferences

#ProTip: Perfect for individuals and teams needing a smart assistant to manage emails, organize projects, and provide quick answers.

Pricing: 

  • Free trial: 7 days
  • Standard: From $27,50 per user/month 
  • Professional: From $46 per user/month

7. Google Workspace AI 

Google Workspace AI is an embedded AI assistant that you’ll find across Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet, as well as a standalone app. 

Originally named Bard and now relaunched as Gemini, it offers smart suggestions, automated workflows, and data analysis. In Gmail, Smart Compose predicts your next sentence, while Smart Reply suggests quick, relevant responses, helping you write emails faster and more efficiently.

Pricing:

  • Free trial: 14 days
  • Business Starter: From $4.90 per user/month, 1-year commitment
  • Business Standard: $11.20 per user/month, 1-year commitment

8. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a conversational AI assistant that helps with tasks like answering questions, writing content, and coding.

If you've ever asked yourself "Can AI help with my emails," then ChatGPT was probably one of the first tools you tried. Its advanced natural language processing and Gen AI enable fluid interactions, making it ideal for personal, educational, and professional use. However, ChatGPT cannot be integrated with other platforms and does not offer automation capabilities.

ChatGPT interface

Pricing:

  • Free version
  • Plus: $20 per month
  • Pro: $200 per month

What about Apple Email generators? 

Even though Apple doesn't offer a dedicated "email generator" in the traditional sense, Apple Intelligence on macOS and iOS includes features that can simplify email creation and management. 

Apple email generators

It makes you more productive through smart writing tools that summarize, proofread, and refine documents and emails offering seamless integration across platforms. And, you can always use smart email platforms tailored for Apple devices—downloadable from the App Store. 

Bonus: Gmelius offers a Progressive Web App (PWA) that mirrors the desktop experience, with features like rules, templates, sequences, and more. The PWA provides real-time push notifications, email composition, replies, and more.

Pricing: Free (Included with your Gmelius subscription)

Key Features of Smart Email

Smart email platforms have plenty of benefits to offer, and most of them are pretty affordable. If you’re looking for the best AI solution for your inbox, here are the features you absolutely need:

1. Automated email replies

The platform should generate replies by analyzing the content of incoming emails and your previous interactions—or, optionally, through prompting. 

This allows you to respond quickly and efficiently without having to type out each response from scratch. With the ability to generate context-aware replies based on your conversation history, you’ll be able to maintain a consistent tone while saving valuable time. 

2. Email categorization

Smart email tools go beyond simple sorting—they intelligently categorize your emails based on key factors like the topic, sender, or importance level. By automatically placing emails into relevant folders or labels, the AI helps you keep your inbox neat and manageable. 

3. Intelligent prioritization

AI tools continually scan your inbox, identifying which messages are urgent or time-sensitive. With intelligent prioritization, important emails are automatically highlighted, ensuring they grab your attention first. 

4. Smart compose

Smart compose technology accelerates the email writing process by suggesting sentence completions or entire responses as you type. This tool is powered by AI, which understands the context of your message and helps you draft emails more quickly and efficiently.

Rather than starting from scratch each time you write, the AI predicts what you want to say next, helping you write emails faster with fewer errors. 

5. Personalized suggestions

As you continue to use your smart email tools, the AI becomes increasingly adept at understanding your writing style, tone, and communication preferences. It learns from your past interactions and refines its suggestions to better match your unique voice.

Over time, the AI will provide more personalized and relevant recommendations, ensuring that your emails sound like they come directly from you, without the need for constant adjustments. 

6. Task automation

AI-powered tools can automate a wide range of repetitive tasks associated with email management. From setting follow-up reminders to tagging emails and scheduling messages, the AI can do a lot of repetitive work for you. 

7. Contextual understanding

Unlike traditional email tools that rely on keyword searches, AI-powered email assistants leverage contextual understanding to ensure that your replies are accurate and relevant to the entire conversation. 

By considering past messages and the overall tone, the AI crafts responses that align with the ongoing discussion, making communication feel more fluid.

AI Email Assistant vs. AI Email Agents

While both aim to improve productivity and efficiency, they serve different purposes and operate at varying levels of autonomy. Here’s a quick breakdown of how each one works:

AI email assistants are tools that help individuals manage their inboxes more efficiently. They assist with tasks like sorting emails, suggesting responses, proofreading, and organizing messages based on priority. 

These assistants improve personal productivity by streamlining email-related activities and require some level of user input for tasks like drafting or approving responses. They're more reactive, responding to the user’s needs and requests.

AI email agents, on the other hand, are autonomous intelligence systems designed to perform specific tasks that involve multiple steps, interfaces, systems, and data sources, mimicking the intentionality of human workers. 

These agents are more proactive, since they are capable of making autonomous decisions and working across different systems, automating complex workflows without the need for constant human intervention. 

This makes them highly efficient for tasks like outreach, AI lead generation, customer support, and more, where they can proactively manage communication, decision-making, and execution across a variety of channels.

To understand which type of AI is right for your smart email use case, check out our ultimate guide to AI for emails.

The State of AI Email Agents in 2025: Key Statistics

The smart email revolution is gaining a significant boost from AI agents. These proactive, multi-system solutions are the next step in the evolution of emails. Here’s what research has to say about the rise of email agents in 2025:

  • Market growth: The AI industry is expected to surpass $500 billion by 2025, with an additional $13 trillion projected to be added to global economic output by 2030.

  • Widespread adoption: By 2025, 25% of businesses using generative AI (Gen AI) will also integrate agentic AI, with adoption rising to 50% by 2027.

  • AI agent implementation: Currently, 51% of organizations have deployed AI agents, and 78% plan to implement new agents in the near future.

  • Sales and profitability: 76% of organizations report that generative AI in sales operations has met or exceeded expectations, demonstrating its ability to drive business growth.

  • Enterprise software growth: The use of AI agents in enterprise applications is expected to rise from just 1% in 2024 to 33% by 2028.

  • Market value: The AI agents market, valued at $5 billion in 2024, is projected to exceed $139 billion by 2033.

  • Widespread integration: A staggering 82% of organizations plan to integrate agentic AI within the next 1-3 years, and 99% of new enterprise applications being developed today include AI agents.

  • Automation potential: Existing technologies, including generative and agentic AI, have the potential to automate 60-70% of tasks across the workday.

  • Global economic contribution: AI is forecast to contribute nearly $4 trillion to global enterprise value by 2025.

Discover Gmelius, the Smart Email Assistant to Regain Your Time

While email has been around since the '70s, it’s still a mainstay of business communication. Unfortunately, the age-old inefficiencies that used to riddle our inboxes also remain. That’s why smart email is such an important trend. It simplifies this traditional communication staple in new and intuitive ways. 

Gmelius is at the forefront of this revolution, providing businesses with an AI-powered shared inbox platform that takes the hard work out of email management. Gmeius AI agents can automatically tag emails, send messages to the right stakeholders, and even write replies without prompting. 

Thanks to Swiss-grade privacy infrastructure and reliable customer support, Gmelius is the preferred smart email platform for businesses worldwide. 

Explore our features with a free trial.

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