AI Breakdown Gmail Is Powering Google’s Latest AI Features
Nov 22, 2025
Gmail is now training AI by using your emails, enhancing features like Smart Compose. The podcast explores how your interactions refine AI models, but raises privacy concerns about default opt-in settings. Listeners get step-by-step instructions to opt out if they're uncomfortable. Jaeden shares his decision to stay opted in while highlighting that many companies engage in similar practices. It's a deep dive into the balance between AI advancements and user privacy.
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Gmail Uses Real Emails To Train AI
- Gmail can access both email contents and attachments to improve Gemini and other AI features.
- Jaeden Schafer warns that real email data is being used to refine models beyond mere UI replies.
Feature Tradeoffs: Personalization Vs Privacy
- Enabling Gmail smart features improves personalization and predictive text by using your content.
- Jaeden notes this tradeoff raises privacy concerns despite Google's stated anonymization and security controls.
Default Opt-Ins Are Ethically Problematic
- Jaeden criticizes default opt-ins and lack of explicit consent for using private data to train models.
- He argues transparent, explicit opt-in dialogs would be the ethical approach rather than automatic enrollment.