Gmail assistant
Ian On reads newly arrived mail, sorts out a summary and to-dos, and for mail that needs a reply, writes a draft reply you review and send.
The Gmail assistant reads new mail that arrives in your connected Gmail in the background, sorts out a summary and to-dos for each email, and writes a reply draft for emails that need a reply. By default it checks for new mail every minute, and an owner or admin can change how often it checks.
What it does for each email
- A one- or two-line summary — what the email is about, at a glance.
- To-dos — the concrete things the email is asking of you.
- A draft reply, saved in Gmail — if the email needs a reply, it's written into the same thread as a draft. It never sends. You open the draft, edit it, and send it yourself when you're ready.
If an email has Attachments, the assistant reads up to 5 per email, up to 10MB per file and 20MB in total, and folds them into the summary and to-dos. It can read PDF, Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx), text and Markdown files, and images (PNG, JPEG). For a long attachment, only the first part may be used. Each attachment is left with one result: Read, Skipped, or Failed. If an email asks you to decide or approve something, it's marked separately as a Decision candidate.
Where it shows up
- Below your conversation with Ian (open it with Talk to Ian on Home) — your Gmail connection status, when it last checked, and how many new emails it handled today. If reply drafts were written today, an Open Gmail drafts link appears too.
- History → Email — receipts for processed mail (summary, to-dos, decision candidates, attachments, draft status). Click Add to intelligence next to an attachment marked Read to add that attachment to Knowledge. The places you can add it to are the same visibility options you choose when you upload a document to Knowledge; if there's more than one, choose one first. Attachments you don't add stay out of Knowledge.
Connecting your Gmail
- Open Settings → Gmail Assistant Connection.
- Click Connect Gmail and finish Google's sign-in and permission consent. Ian On asks for two permissions — read your mail and create drafts. By Google's definition, the create-drafts permission also allows sending mail, but the Gmail assistant uses it only to create drafts and never sends mail.
- That's it. On the first check after you connect, it records a starting point and handles new mail that arrives after that. Mail you already have isn't imported.
To stop, click Disconnect on the same card.
If you don't see the Gmail Assistant Connection card, ask an owner or admin to turn on Email Assistant in Admin → Features. If the card shows the notice "The admin needs to turn on the Gmail assistant before you can connect.", ask them to turn on Enable Gmail assistant in Admin → Email assistant (see Delivery, Messengers, and Email assistant). You can still Disconnect an account you already connected, even when the feature is off.
Good to know
- One Gmail per person. Each Ian On user connects one Gmail account, and only you see its summaries and drafts.
- Nothing is sent without you. The draft is the assistant's last step; a person always sends.
- If checking stops, reconnect. If you see Gmail checking stopped · reconnect needed below your conversation with Ian, click it to open Settings. On the Gmail Assistant Connection card, click Disconnect, then connect again with Connect Gmail. Reconnecting records a new starting point, just like the first connection, so mail that arrived while checking was stopped isn't processed.