Long‑time Gmail power user announced a switch to a non‑Google inbox after the platform began injecting Google Gemini AI summaries into incoming messages. The feature lives under Settings → General → Smart Features and is now bundled with Smart Tabs, a categorization system dating back to 2013. The author found the auto‑summary impossible to disable.

Beyond annoyance, the change raised privacy alarms when a pop‑up warned that Google may review messages and use their content to train large language models. The notice explicitly cited potential human inspection, prompting the user—who previously accepted email‑based advertising—to question whether personal and commercial data should fuel Google’s AI research.

To escape the new policy, the writer migrated the address to Microsoft Outlook, hoping for fewer data‑mining constraints, and hinted at a future move to ProtonMail in Switzerland if Microsoft follows suit. The episode underscores growing tension between convenience‑driven AI features and user control, a debate likely to shape email service roadmaps this year.