I used Gmail's AI tool to do hours of work for me in 10 minutes - with 3 prompts

## Summary
PT David Gewirtz/Elyse Betters-Picaro/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. I said, "What contacts do I have at [company] and what's the date of their most recent contacts with me?" I've redacted the company name, but here's what Gmail returned: Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET That output took like a minute. Gmail gave me back this construct in the sidebar: Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET I found that suggestion a little cramped, so I hit the Edit in Gmail button. Here's what Gmail prepared for me: Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET The draft was exactly what I needed, so I just hit Send.

## Article Content
Innovation
Home
Innovation
Artificial Intelligence
I used Gmail's AI tool to do hours of work for me in 10 minutes - with 3 prompts
I just had a 'living in the future' moment with Gmail, of all things. Here's what happened.
Written by
David Gewirtz,
Senior Contributing Editor
Senior Contributing Editor
April 1, 2026 at 8:14 a.m. PT
David Gewirtz/Elyse Betters-Picaro/ZDNET
Follow ZDNET:
Add us as a preferred source
on Google.
ZDNET's key takeaways
Gmail search doubles as a powerful AI command center.
AI can quickly find contacts, history, and draft follow-ups.
AI turns tedious inbox work into a rapid workflow process.
In this article, I'm going to show you
how I used AI
in Gmail to save myself hours of tedium and annoyance. In Gmail. No kidding. Really.
Gmail was announced on April 1, 2004. Back then, email services like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail provided 2MB or 4MB of storage. Google launched Gmail with 1GB of free storage capacity. Since that was 250 times the amount Yahoo offered and 500 times what Hotmail offered, the announcement was widely viewed as an April Fool's joke. But Gmail was no joke.
Also:
Inside Google's vision to make Gmail your personal AI agent command center
While storage capacities have grown since then (my account has 2,048 GB), much of the Gmail interface remains almost identical to what was launched in 2004. Over the years, Google has released some gimmicks, like the
ill-fated Inbox by Gmail offering
from 2014 and the
mostly useless AI Inbox launched this year
.
Even though Google has been actively embedding AI into many of its properties, Gmail AI features mostly feel like poorly integrated patches on top of an aging interface. For example, Gmail plasters AI overviews at the top of messages, a feature that you can't turn off. I've had many long conversations with folks who
hate
this intrusion into their email flow.
But last week, I had to work on a big, tedious project. I decided to try an AI hack with Gmail to see if I could save some time. What happened blew me away. I had one of those very rare moments where it's 100% clear that I'm actually living in the future. It's also fitting that I'm publishing this article on April 1, 22 years to the day since Gmail was first announced.
Also:
Want to change your Gmail address? Now you can, without losing any data - here's how
What Gmail did in this hack was personal to my email flow and project. To understand just how gobsmackingly insane its behavior was, you need to understand my project. Give me a few minutes to share the backstory, then I'll show you what I did with Gmail's built-in AI. I'll also show you how you can make this hack work for you.
My project
About a year ago, I published
an article reviewing the best AI web builders
. This was a huge project, taking 70 hours overall. Much of that time was spent wrangling hosting providers who claimed to offer AI, sending and replying to 236 emails to acquire and set up test accounts on their services.
The article has turned out to be a good performer. My editor wants me to update the piece for this year. About a month ago, I sent out a set of emails to the five finalist companies I spotlighted last year. Over the past 30 days, I've interacted with most of these companies several times, creating a bunch of new email threads.
Also:
Looking for an AI-powered website builder? Here's your best option in 2025
The challenge with a project like this is that you send an email and you wait. So, after a spate of back-and-forth email messages, I went on to other work. Last week, I decided it was time to review the current correspondence and see if I was ready to start testing.
The normal way I have had to do this sort of thing in the past is to dig up the names and email addresses of the folks I'm corresponding with on the project, which is usually fairly easy because I keep the list in an Apple Note. But then I have to go through all the email threads for each person to figure out each company's status.
This is time-consuming, tedious clerical work that, to be blunt, I truly dislike doing.
That's when the lightbulb went off. Google's always talking about its AI in Gmail. Maybe I could use this technology to find a better way.
Also:
I tested ChatGPT vs. Claude to see which is better - and if it's worth switching
I did, and it worked. I'll walk you through what I did. I'm going to share screenshots of the real conversations with Gmail and the vendors, although I blurred some of those interactions because the details of my correspondents and their conversations aren't meant to be public.
The Hail Mary prompt
American slang uses
the phrase "Hail Mary pass"
to describe a wildly desperate football pass, typically tried when all other saner options are unlikely to succeed. The expression goes back at least to the 1930s. It has been adopted to mean a desperate action done with little expectation of success when there are no apparent better alternatives.
I wrote the following prompt as a Hail Mary pass to get

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- Innovation Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence I used Gmail's AI tool to do hours of work for me in 10 minutes - with 3 prompts I just had a 'living in the future' moment with Gmail, of all things.
- It has been adopted to mean a desperate action done with little expectation of success when there are no apparent better alternatives.
- When you do, provide the app with as much information as possible so it can have a better chance of success.

### Areas for Consideration
- Here's your best option in 2025 The challenge with a project like this is that you send an email and you wait.

### Implications
- Innovation Home Innovation Artificial Intelligence I used Gmail's AI tool to do hours of work for me in 10 minutes - with 3 prompts I just had a 'living in the future' moment with Gmail, of all things.
- I decided to try an AI hack with Gmail to see if I could save some time.
- I had one of those very rare moments where it's 100% clear that I'm actually living in the future.
- Also: Want to change your Gmail address?

### Expert Commentary
This article covers gmail, project, email topics. Notable strengths include discussion of gmail. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1906.