Artificial intelligence has exploded and is everywhere! You can now use AI to write emails for you and summarize any long emails in your inbox that you don’t have time to read with BlueMail.
BlueMail is an email app for every device and it runs on Windows PC, Apple Mac, iPhone, Android Phone, and even Linux too. The apps are free and so are most of the features, although you can subscribe to a Plus version for a monthly fee and get a few more features.
The AI feature in BlueMail is called GEM, which is short for Generative Email. It is based on a customized version of OpenAI ChatGPT.
Looking at the pricing page on the BlueMail site, GEM AI looks like it is only available in the paid Plus app, but I have the free BlueMail app on my Android phone and Windows PC and GEM works fine on both. I have been using the AI features to write and send emails and summarize long emails in my inbox.
Maybe I got GEM AI because I already had the app. Maybe new users only get GEM if they upgrade to Plus. I don’t know. Let me know if you find out. I’m using the free app and it works fine.
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Use AI to write emails
The screenshots below are from using AI in the free BlueMail app on an Android phone, but the mail app is available for iPhone, PC, Mac and Linux too. It is pretty interesting and it could be very useful and boost your productivity when dealing with emails.
Create an email
In the BlueMail app, tap the button at the bottom of the screen to create a new email. You can also choose to reply to an email too, but I will create a new one. At the right of the subject line is a GEM icon. Press it to use AI to write your email.
Briefly describe your email content
What do you want the email to be about? Tap in the input box and write a short description. For example, in the screenshot I entered “Sorry, there are no job vacancies”, which is the sort of thing you might send to someone who enquired about jobs.
Press the Generate button to put the AI to work writing your email.
BlueMail generated email
It takes about 10 seconds before it produces the results and it is displayed below your description. A suggested email subject is at the top and then the email content follows.
It says “I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to inform you that unfortunately, there are currently no job vacancies available at our company…” blah, blah, blah. The text is typical of the sort of polite email response you might actually get if you asked companies about working for them.
If you have dozens of people to email or reply to, a standard response like this would save you a lot of work. Just tap the Apply button and the subject and text are inserted into the email you were creating.
If the email is not quite right for what you want, you can edit the subject and try again and generate a new response by tapping the button in the top right corner. However, there is a useful GEM Options button at the bottom. Press it.
Select the AI writing style
I find that setting the length to short is best. I don’t like overly long and wordy emails that. Even the short emails it creates are probably longer than I would write.
The Tone menu has several options and you can make the AI casual, formal, friendly, professional, urgent, complimentary or critical. The Length menu offers default, short and long responses.
The language is set to your device’s language by default, which is probably best for most people, but other languages are available.
Are AI generated emails useful?
The AI generated emails that BlueMail creates are sometimes very useful, but occasionally they are not. As with all AI, the quality of the output varies with the input and you might need to find the right words to produce the response you want. You have to learn how to use AI. The output also varies with the style and length options.
I tried a few business type emails enquiring about products and services and mostly it produced very good emails. However, I noticed it sometimes confused me asking about someone else’s products or services and them asking me about mine. It didn’t seem to pick up on “my” or “your” in my input prompt.
There are many emails and responses to emails that the AI can help with and you can generate an email and then simply tweak it to fit your needs. I was using it on a phone where typing with your thumbs is awkward and slow unless you are a teenager, and it can save a lot of time and effort by writing the bulk of an email’s content for you. You just need to edit the result.
Summarize emails using AI in BlueMail
The GEM AI that is built into BlueMail is not just for writing emails, it helps you with dealing with your inbox. If you receive an excessively wordy email and you don’t have the time or inclination to read it, tap the GEM icon on the right in the message header and a menu appears:
- Summarize (GEM AI): The AI reads the content of the email and then presents you with a summary of the main points.
- Translate Text: Change it from one language to another.
- Reply (GEM AI): Go to the AI email writer to create a reply to the email. It uses the content of the email to generate the response.
I was impressed with the summarize option. Summaries of long emails were good and it seemed to understand what an email was about and tell you with the minimum of words.
The Reply feature is very clever and the process is similar to creating an email. You enter a brief description and the AI builds on it. However, it also includes references to the main points in the sender’s email in the response it generates.
My only criticism again is that its replies tend to be a bit overly long for my liking. They are very well written, but a bit wordy. Mind you, the recipient can always use the summarize feature if they are also using BlueMail.
Conclusion: Using AI to write emails
BlueMail is an excellent email app and it has a great range of features even without the AI. The addition of GEM AI for summarizing and writing emails is clearly the future of mail. Don’t be too surprised if AI pops up in other email apps, it is bound to happen.
GEM, BlueMail’s implementation of a custom version of ChatGPT, is not perfect and we all know that ChatGPT has faults and limitations, but I was very impressed with what it could do for me in this email app. It could help you spend less time dealing with email and be more productive with your time.
