1.8 Billion Gmail Users May Want to Check This AI Privacy Setting

Gmail users: Beware what you write.

On May 7, Google announced two personalization updates to Gmail’s AI “Help me write” email-drafting assistant. However, Shark Tank’s Lori Greiner posted a warning on Instagram claiming that the tech giant doesn’t want users to know that it has been “allowing AI to scan every single one of your emails.”

This includes tax documents, financial information, and personal conversations.

“All of it is being scanned by AI without you even knowing it,” Grenier said in the post.

Google’s Gemini AI can analyze Gmail content to provide smart searches, contextual replies, and email summaries when certain smart features are enabled, according to Forbes.

How to shut down Gemini

The good news is that you can turn this off… in about 30 seconds, Grenier said. Users who want to reduce Gmail’s smart personalization features can review their settings in Gmail:

1. Open Gmail and click the gear icon.
2. Select See all settings.
3. Find Smart features and personalization.
4. Uncheck the relevant boxes.
5. Review Smart features in other Google products.
6. Click Save changes.

Once you disable those settings, Google says Gmail will no longer use your content for certain smart personalization features. However, that does not fully prevent automated processing within Gmail or mean that Google can no longer access the account data needed to run the service.

According to Forbes, these features are optional, and users always remain in control. The outlet noted that they are likely enabled by default, so you have to take these steps to disable them. However, there is a caveat: Once you disable the setting, you won’t get any new AI upgrades, and it cannot be turned on and off.

This isn’t the first time Gmail users have had to worry about Google feeding Gemini their private messages and attachments into its AI systems. The tech giant was hit with a class-action lawsuit earlier this year after enabling “Smart Features” across all user accounts without alerting them.

Must-read security coverage

Google announces Gmail updates

Grenier’s warning comes as the company has added two new personalization enhancements to Gmail.

The first is topic contextualization, which now connects to Google Drive and Gmail based on a prompt you give it without your manual input.

“It will then use the context from these apps to automatically insert relevant information into the email draft, reducing the time you spend toggling between apps to find specific details,” Google said.

The second is added tone and style personalization to its “Help me write” feature so that when active, the AI “can mimic how you speak,” and create personalized email drafts that match the tone and style of emails you have previously written.

In addition to increasing Gmail’s capabilities, the new features are meant “to help quicken the work process” and save users time by not having to do “cross-Workspace app context switching to reference correct sources, typing, copy-pasting, and formatting.”

All they need to do is type a short prompt and delegate the draft writing, Google said.

The updates are available to users with Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra, as well as to users with the usual Workspace accounts. The company said it may take up to 15 days before users on Rapid and Scheduled Release domains see it.

An AI inbox, and more Gemini features

Google has been on a quest to make Gmail more user-friendly with AI. In January, the email platform received another AI-focused feature: an AI-powered inbox.

Gemini scans users’ emails to improve writing, search, and email summarization and surfacing — all in the name of helping them manage email overload.

And Gemini was outfitted with a whole new set of AI features across Workspace, announced at Google Cloud Next 2026. The company is aiming to make the AI less of a chatbot and more of an assistant that can work across the apps businesses already use.

For more on Google’s AI push beyond Gmail, read how the company is turning Fitbit into Google Health with Gemini-powered coaching and a new Fitbit Air tracker.