Google says it’s AI will clean all traces of unpleasant spam from your inbox
In order to keep your Gmail inbox free of spam, Google is using smarter technology. However, it is ensuring at the same time that only valid messages get through.
Google surpasses its own antispam powers. Gmail, on one hand, is using artificial intelligence to effectively detect “sneaky” spam that would get through in another way, Sri Harsha Somanchi, Google product manager said in a blog post on Thursday bordering the new ways in which smarter technology is being used to create better spam filters. On the other end, Google has launched a feature called Gmail Postmaster Tools, which gives data that can help email senders identify better as to why certain emails get classified as spam.
To ascertain which messages are spam, particularly when a message considered as spam to one person could be valid to another. Gmail Postmaster Tools help qualified high-volume senders to examine their email by showing data on spam errors, delivery errors, and reputation, so they can identify any hiccups, study best practices, and help the company’s mail app route messages to the right inbox.
“Gmail users get lots of important email from companies like banks and airlines—from monthly statements to ticket receipts — but sometimes these wanted messages are mistakenly classified as spam,” Sri Harsha Somanchi wrote in a blog post. “When this happens, you might have to wade through your spam folder to find that one important email (yuck!). We can help senders to do better.”
Somanchi said that less than 0.1 percent of email in the average Gmail inbox is spam, and the amount of legitimate mail stuck in the spam folder is even lower, at under 0.05 percent. But the battle carries on.
“Ultimately, we aspire to a spam-free Gmail experience,” Somanchi said. “So please keep those spam reports coming, and if you’re a company that sends email, then check out our new Postmaster Tools. Together we can get the wanted mail to the right place, and keep the spam where it belongs.”
In addition to the Postmaster Tools, the company also revealed improved intelligence developed for the company’s Search and Now applications to make the spam filter smarter in a number of ways.
Gmail’s spam filter is now using an artificial neural network, aka artificial intelligence, to become smarter. When you tag a message as spam or not spam, you assist the spam filter learn from its mistakes, so it can be more exact and trustworthy in the future. However, the new neural network takes that a step further by better identifying and blocking “the especially sneaky spam,” meaning the kind that can easily pass for a valid mail.
Advances in machine learning can now help the spam filter better learn each individual’s preferences. So it can correctly tag a certain message as spam for you but as a valid mail for another user. For example, weekly email newsletter, which may be needed by one person but not by another one. The Gmail spam filter has also become smarter at recognizing email impersonation, which means messages that come from a source other than the actual sender. Spammers usually use fake addresses so they cannot be identified, but a more sophisticated spam filter can detect mail from such addresses.
Lately, a lot of news have been made on the overall notion of machine learning and AI, while some notable visionaries, including Bill Gates, have doubts. Others have admired the technology’s ability for creating jobs.
Let’s go back to the everyday challenges of cleaning up a Gmail inbox. Google is also utilizing new machine learning signals that help the application find out whether a message actually came from its sender and keep fake email at bay.
Many of the US businesses and their employees continue to face the major problem of unwanted or useless email, which is the biggest obstruction to everyday email use. According to 45% of those surveyed in a June GFI report, is spam.
