Gmail's New Feature Is A Game-Changer For The Holiday Shopping Season
Starting yesterday, Google began rolling out a new feature to Gmail users across mobile and desktop alike— an overhaul to Gmail's purchase and delivery tracking functionality. Previously, Gmail would highlight deliveries set to arrive within 24 hours at the top of your Primary inbox, but now that feature has been further expanded to a dedicated Purchases tracking tab that will exclusively track emails concerning purchases and deliveries.
Additionally, the new Summary cards now offer "See item" or "Track package" buttons that skip straight to the respective order or tracking pages, allowing you to skip opening the actual emails and get straight to business. Since most emails concerning deliveries previously went straight to the Updates tab, it's nice to see Google allowing users to narrow down ecommerce tracking so easily.
Additionally, Gmail is also overhauling the Promotions tab. Similar to Purchases, cards highlighting "Top deals for you" sorted from your Promotions inbox will now appear, with buttons to head straight to the web store and relevant promo codes immediately visible without needing to open the email. Additionally, Gmail will now allow you to sort by "Most relevant" promotional emails, determined mostly by the senders and brands you've interacted with the most. Google also notes in its original blog post that you can still choose a more traditional "Most recent" view if you prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.
While ultimately a minor UI refinement, these new changes seem to be the biggest addition to Gmail since AI service Gemini was officially integrated back in July, after it was rebranded from the Duet AI assistant originally added to Gmail in August 2023. Gmail is one of Google's oldest services, and a defining piece of its history when it was introduced in an age where most email providers simply were not willing to do it for free.
Fast forward to today and Gmail is still mostly the free email service it was introduced to us as, though some critics may not appreciate additions of AI features they didn't ask for. But since these improvements to tracking purchases, deliveries, and promotions are all pretty clear-cut, non-intrusive improvements to Gmail's functionality, we doubt this addition will draw any controversy.
Image Credit: Google
