Since 2017, Google has promised not to show ads based on users’ Gmail messages.
While that policy isn’t changing today, Google may be laying the groundwork for personalized ads based on AI insights from users’ inboxes. Google’s support documents already acknowledge that it may show ads based on users’ interactions with AI, and with new Personal Intelligence AI features in Google Search, those interactions can now include data from Gmail.
Let’s say, for instance, that you’re researching new cars. Personal Intelligence could make recommendations by looking to your email to figure out what you drive now, what kind of activities you might use the car for, and who else you’ll be driving around in it. AI allows Google to synthesize a clearer picture of who you are. The only question is whether those particular AI interactions involving personal data will become fair game for targeted ads.
Allie Bodack, a Google spokesperson, says via email that the company isn’t using Gmail data for targeted ads right now. She points to a recent statement to Search Engine Land saying that when users enable Personal Intelligence features, they currently won’t see ads in the AI Mode of Google Search. Asked if Google is using Personal Intelligence to target ads elsewhere—for instance, in regular Google searches—Bodack says “that’s not the case today.”
But neither that response nor Google’s statement to Search Engine Land rule out showing ads based on Gmail data in the future, and the company’s statement acknowledges that ads are coming to AI mode even for users who’ve set up Personal Intelligence. While Google is proceeding with caution due to the sensitive nature of users’ email communications, the insights it can gain from that data may be too useful to pass up.
How your emails could become targeted ad fodder
Google introduced Personal Intelligence in January, and made it available to all U.S. users in March. Once activated, it allows Google to reference personal information from Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Photos when users search in the Gemini app or in Google Search’s AI Mode.
For instance, if you’re shopping for clothes, Google might look through your purchase receipts in Gmail to figure out what brands and styles you like. If you ask for places to visit, Google might use your emails and photos to figure out where you’ve already been.
As noted by a Google support document, these AI responses become part of your Search Services History, which is a record of past search interactions tied to your account. That same document mentions that Google uses this history for targeted ads. (Google also uses these interactions to train its AI models, albeit with personal information removed.)
“Your saved history helps tailor your experience on Search services and across Google,” the document says. For example, it helps you revisit previous searches and get personalized recommendations and ads, based on your personalization settings, the document says.
This doesn’t mean Google is scanning entire inboxes to build advertising profiles of its users. Instead, it implies that if you ask Google’s AI a question that requires information from your email to answer, that response could part of the record that Google uses for ad targeting.
“Email data is particularly valuable because it reveals high-intent signals about travel plans, purchases, subscriptions, life events, and professional interests that are often more predictive than browsing behavior,” Forrester principal analyst Nikhil Lai says via email. “While Google emphasizes that Personal Intelligence is designed to improve AI responses, consumers are likely to question where the line exists between personalization and advertising.”
Personal Intelligence is an opt-in feature; there’s a page on Google’s website allowing users to connect or disconnect their Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive) and Google Photos accounts. Still, Google has been pushing Personal Intelligence via pop-ups in its Gemini app, so it’s possible that users may enable the feature without fully understanding the implications.
Why it matters
To be sure, Google already has lots of other ways to understand who you are. Many of the websites you visit and apps you use have embedded tracking code from Google for monitoring your activity beyond its own websites, and services like Chrome and Google Search give the company a detailed view of what you’re looking for.
But with Personal Intelligence, Google has the ability to generate even deeper insights into users’ lives.
A story from June by David Pierce of The Verge is particularly instructive, as he demoed an upcoming AI agent from Google called Spark. With access to Pierce’s Gmail, Spark was able to determine his wife’s dietary preferences, the exact ages of his two children, and the names of his entire family (including his parents).
“I know that Google knows an incredible amount about me—add up my emails, my calendar, my photos, and my search history, and you’ve pretty much got me pegged. But seeing Spark treat all that data not as something to be protected, but as something to be mined, just feels bad,” Pierce wrote.
Of course, mining that information for advertising purposes would be the logical next step for a company whose parent, Alphabet, derived 73% of its revenue from ads last year. While Google says it’s not doing that today, it’s not guaranteeing that it’ll stay that way forever.
Lena Cohen, a staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says features often introduce new vectors for companies to collect or misuse personal data, and that users deserve more transparency from Google about how that data will be used.
“It’s unacceptable that it takes a journalist asking the company, and that it’s so unclear to regular Google users how their emails may or may not link to Google’s ad targeting system through this new AI feature,” Cohen says.
Google’s privacy policy is at least clear, noting that “[w]e don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.” It may be worth keeping an eye on whether that changes.
