How to use Google Bard to write emails in Gmail

At Google I/O in May, the company announced that they have big plans for Bard, its AI chatbot. That includes putting it into Gmail to help write emails for you. If you signed up for early access, then you can use it now – just not on a Workspace account.

This article will explain to you how you can use Google Bard in Gmail to write emails and reply to emails.

What is Google Bard?

Google Bard is the search engine giants AI Chatbot that it debuted a few months ago to compete with ChatGPT. You can ask it all sorts of questions, and since it is powered by Google, it does also have Google Search behind it. Allowing it to be a whole lot more powerful than ChatGPT. Google has started to integrate it into more of its own products, starting with Gmail.

How to use Bard to write a new email

To get started, you’ll need to request early access here. Once you’ve been accepted into the labs, you can continue through this tutorial.

Open Gmail. Then tap on Compose.

Now in the Compose screen, you’ll see a new button that is next to the formatting button. It looks like a pencil with a plus sign and will be in blue. Tap on that.

From here, you can type a prompt for Google Bard to write an email. Something like, “ask my boss for vacation time in late June”.

Now you’ll wait for Bard to generate the email. This usually only takes a few seconds.

Once generated, you’ll want to double-check it, and also fill in some areas, as you can see above, before sending it.

Now, from here, you can have Bard recreate the email if you don’t like it. You can also refine it. The options there include Formalize, Elaborate, Shorten or I’m Feeling Lucky.

You can keep tweaking the settings til you get an email that you want to use. And then click on Insert.

Now, click on each placeholder and replace the text with the correct details.

And when you’re happy with it, click Send.

How to use Bard to reply to emails

Open up the email you need to reply to. Then select Reply.

Just like with composing a new email, you’ll now see a blue button next to the formatting button, with a pencil and plus sign. Click on that.

Enter your prompt for Bard to write a response for.

After Bard has written the response, you can critique it, making Bard recreate it, or have it be more professional, more elaborate, etc.

Once you’re happy with it, click on Insert. Then make sure to replace all of the placeholder text with the appropriate information.

Then you can click send.