Google’s automatic email reply: Time saver or out-of-office replicator?

Too busy or tired to answer your emails? If you have a Gmail account, Google will do it for you. The new functionality, Smart Reply, will be available this week as part of its “Inbox” app on Google Play and the App Store.

So what, exactly, is Smart Reply? In ultimate Big Brother fashion, Google will analyze your emails — both inbound and outbound. Then, when an email comes in, Smart Reply will offer you three short responses. You simply tap on one of them to reply. If you need a more in-depth response, according to Gmail blogspot, Smart Response “gives you a jumpstart so you can respond right away.”

The responses are generated through artificial intelligence, not preset phrases like those you set up on your smart phone (for example, “omw” turning into “On my way!”). The blogspot provides this illustration of Smart Reply:

Inbound Email:

Hi Peter,
Do you have any documentation for how to use the new software? If not maybe you could put something together, it would be really useful for onboarding.
EJ

Suggested Replies:

I don’t, sorry.
I will have to look for it.
I’ll send it to you.

(Related read: Managing the convergence of compliance and technology)

Will this new tool save enough time to make up for the potential issues with exposure of your emails? Is this merely one step forward from an away message on your voicemail or auto-response on your email? Or is it a step toward enhancing the ability of robo-advisers to eventually replace us mere humans?

Sheryl Rowling is the chief executive of Total Rebalance Expert and principal at Rowling & Associates. She considers herself a non-techie user of technology.