Back in May, Google hosted a NEXT Live EMEA event to talk about new features coming to Google Cloud and G Suite. A lot of information was spewed out at the event, and one announcement that slipped under our radar has to do with a few new additions that are coming to Gmail.
First thing's first, the most noticeable upgrade for Gmail that was shown off is a brand-new Material Design overhaul for its user interface on the web. Gmail doesn't necessarily look bad in its current form, but it is a great departure from the Material Design aesthetic that's slowly working its way across all of Google's other services.
In a screenshot of the new Gmail interface shown off at Google NEXT, we can see that the entire UI is considerably cleaner and much more minimalistic. The tabs of black text on the left-hand side have been replaced by more visually appealing icons, the Social and Promotions tabs are gone, and there's also handy options for quickly accessing your Contacts and Tasks.
Along with the new look, Google also announced a couple of new features that are coming to Gmail — including Smart Reply, smart groupings, and the ability to snooze emails. Smart Reply automatically populates possible replies that Google thinks you'd want to send, smart groupings automatically bundle emails into certain categories, and snooze allows you to hide/snooze emails until a certain time or when you arrive at a specific place. Both smart groupings and snoozing emails have been available in Inbox since its debut, and it's nice to see these features make their way to Google's primary email client.
There's currently no word as to when these updates will be fully rolled out to Gmail, but we certainly hope that they arrive sooner rather than later.
