The Marketer’s Guide to Email in the Age of AI Summaries

Hey brands! Time to update your promotional email playbook! 

Google’s AI summaries just launched for ALL Gmail users. If you’ve been paying attention, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise (Apple Intelligence introduced similar email summarization in 2024) but it is confirmation that AI summaries are becoming the standard across all major inboxes.

And considering Gmail is the number one email client in Canada and US (with around 40% penetration) this will impact even more of your customers, and suggests that your current email strategy is need of a little rethink.

What do AI summaries actually mean for your brand

The new AI summaries essentially mean that your emails get summed up in a line or two, by AI, to give the recipient an overview of the information the email contains. Which means that, as this feature becomes even more used (it is turned on be default!), your beautifully crafted subject lines, clever openers, and engaging CTAs might never make it to human eyes.

Basically, your marketing message now has to pass TWO filters: AI’s and (if you pass that gatekeeper) your reader’s.

The evolution of email KPI tracking

AI summaries may (JK, they totally will) mess with your tracking metrics in two ways:

Open rates may be overinflated as some email deployment platforms may count AI bots opens as an email open.

Click rates may take a dive since users will get the gist of the email without taking further action. This means you’ll need to keep an eye on indirect KPIs like branded search volume, direct traffic after sends and offer redemptions.

Welcome to the new era of email marketing, folks. 😅

The new email playbook for AI Summaries

• Be direct and structured: Clearly state the main message in the first 1–2 lines. If AI is summarizing your email, make sure it knows what’s important.
  
• Avoid buried leads: Don’t rely on a clever hook 3 paragraphs down. Your first few lines may be the only part that gets surfaced, so get to the point… fast!
  
• Don’t gatekeep details: Make sure all the important information is included in the body of the email, not hidden behind a button.
  
• Add value AI can’t erase: Personalized offers, time-sensitive deals, or other human elements will help the message stand out.
  
• One email = one message: Don’t try to cram too many updates into one email, you’ll end up diluting the message.
  
• Design for clarity: AI favours text-first, structured emails over image-heavy designs. Use headers, bullets, and alt text to make your content easy for both AI and humans to scan.
  
• Rethink your success metrics: Track indirect KPIs: branded search volume, direct traffic after sends, offer redemptions (add custom tracking codes and unique offer IDs to help.)
  
• Test for AI-readability: Ask an AI to summarize your email in 10 words. If your key message didn’t make the cut, rewrite the email copy until it does.

TL;DR
This is the new inbox reality. If your emails aren’t AI-friendly, they might get ignored. Even if your content is amazing.

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