I receive over 200 emails a day and spend 3 hours just replying to basic queries. Are there AI tools that can categorize my mail and draft replies based on my past writing style, or is that still too risky for professional communication?
3 answers
You can definitely automate this, but you need the right "guardrails." Superhuman AI is the leader here; it has a feature called "Auto-Draft" that looks at your previous 100 sent emails to mimic your tone. It saves me at least an hour a day because I just have to "tab" through and hit send on 80% of my routine replies. For the categorization part, SaneBox uses AI to move newsletters and low-priority CC's into a "SaneLater" folder, so my main inbox only shows high-stakes messages. This isn't about replacing your voice; it's about removing the "empty calories" from your digital diet.
What about the privacy of my contacts? When these AI tools "read" my emails to learn my style, are they storing that data on their servers or is it processed locally?
I just use ChatGPT with a custom "Email Assistant" GPT. I copy-paste the text, it drafts the reply, and I paste it back. It’s free and keeps me in total control.
Scott, that works, but it's the "copy-paste" that eats time. Once you move to a tool that is integrated into the inbox, you'll never go back to the manual way.
Thomas, that's a crucial question for 2024. Most premium tools like Superhuman and Shortwave are SOC 2 compliant and don't use your data to train their "base" models. However, if you're in a highly regulated field like law or medicine, you should look into Shortwave's Enterprise tier, which offers zero-retention data processing. Always check the "Data Processing Agreement" (DPA) before connecting your business Gmail or Outlook to any AI service.