If you receive a lot of email, and most people do, then sometimes it can be a challenge to pull up a particular old missive in your inbox. Google has decided that the solution must be more artificial intelligence. Today, the company announced that it is rolling out an update that uses AI to assess inbox search queries to account for recency, frequent contacts and most-clicked emails. The "most relevant" search feature is rolling out globally to personal accounts, while business accounts will get it at an unspecified future date. If the idea of yet more AI in your software icks you out, at least you won't be required to use this feature.

Google is considering charging for new premium artificial intelligence-powered search features, according to a Financial Times report that cites three people familiar with the matter. This includes looking at options such as adding certain AI-powered search features to its premium subscription services, which offer the company's Gemini AI assistant in Gmail and Google Docs, the newspaper reported. Google's free search engine would remain so, and ads would continue even for subscribers. In response to an inquiry about the report, a Google spokesperson tells TIME in an email: "We're not working on or considering an ad-free search experience. As we've done many times before, we'll continue to build new premium capabilities and services to enhance our subscription offerings across Google. We don't have anything to announce right now." "For years, we've been reinventing search to help people access information in the way that's most natural to them," the statement also said.

If you're in the US, you might see a new shaded section at the top of your Google Search results with a summary answering your inquiry, along with links for more information. That section, generated by Google's generative AI technology, used to appear only if you've opted into the Search Generative Experience (SGE) in the Search Labs platform. Now, according to Search Engine Land, Google has started adding the experience on a "subset of queries, on a small percentage of search traffic in the US." And that is why you could be getting Google's experimental AI-generated section even if you haven't switched it on. The company introduced SGE at its I/O developer conference in May last year, shortly after it opened up access to its ChatGPT rival Bard, now called Gemini.