If your Gmail inbox is all out of whack today, you're not alone. Gmail users have been encountering issues with the automatic filters that keep their main inbox free from the clutter of promotional emails and non-urgent updates, and some have reported seeing notices that emails have not been scanned for spam. Google confirmed to Engadget and in an update on its Workspace status dashboard that it's aware of the problems, and is currently working on a fix.
Google's email filtering on Gmail appears to be on the fritz today, as messages that would normally be routed to the Promotions or Social tabs are appearing in the Primary inbox. Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. However, users on social media are complaining about this "extremely annoying" glitch. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
On Thursday, the company announced a new "AI Inbox" tab, currently in a beta testing phase, that reads every message in a user's Gmail and suggests a list of to-dos and key topics, based on what it summarizes. In Google's example of what this AI Inbox could look like in Gmail, the new tab takes context from a user's messages and suggests they reschedule their dentist appointment, reply to a request from their child's sports coach, and pay an upcoming fee before the deadline.
The confusion appears to have started after Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) creator Troy Hunt announced he had added a large dataset of 183 million credentials to the breach notification service. The data was shared with Hunt by Synthient, a threat intelligence platform that collects and analyzes information from infostealer malware logs. As Hunt explained in a blog post, the collection reflects years of infostealer activity rather than a single new compromise - and certainly not a targeted attack on Gmail.
Google is launching a new tool that uses AI to make it easier for Gmail users with Google Calendar to schedule their meetings. On Tuesday, the company launched a Gemini-powered "Help me schedule" feature that will surface ideal meeting times based on calendar availability and then display them to the person you're emailing to set up a meeting. The company notes that the feature is designed to work for one-on-one meetings, not those with multiple contacts or group meetings.
"My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail's spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats," Ferguson wrote. He warned Alphabet that if Gmail's filters "keep Americans from receiving speech they expect, or donating as they see fit, the filters may harm American consumers and may violate the FTC Act's prohibition of unfair or deceptive trade practices," adding this could lead to "an FTC investigation and potential enforcement action."
