Gemini in Gmail can now help polish your drafts

Google is updating its Gemini writing tools in Gmail to help you revise drafts you’ve already written. Along with other Gemini-powered “help me write” options like Formalize and Elaborate, you can now tap “Polish” to refine your emails, Google said in a blog post. The company has also added shortcuts that appear in the body of your emails on Android and iOS, making it clearer that you can use AI writing tools.

The tools are available to people who have paid for Google One AI Premium accounts or for Google’s Gemini add-on for Workspace. If that’s you, when you open a blank draft, you’ll see a “Help me write” shortcut that you can tap to have Gemini create a draft text for you. Once you have 12 or more words in a draft – whether written by AI or not – you should see a new “Refine my draft” shortcut, displayed in gray letters below the words.

Slide your thumb across the text. You can then choose to Refine, Formalize, Elaborate, or Shorten, or just let Gemini write a completely new draft for you. (And if you don’t see the Refine My Draft shortcut, you can do the same by tapping the pencil icon.)