AI Is Reading Your Email by Default — Here's How to Turn It Off

Your email inbox has always been scanned automatically — that's how spam filters work and how search finds old messages. But something shifted around late 2025: that scanning expanded to include Gemini, Google's AI assistant, which can read your emails and answer questions about them on request. In the US, this feature was turned on quietly for most Gmail users, as a default, without a clear moment where you said yes. In the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland, and Japan, it works the other way round: Google keeps Gemini off by default in Gmail, and you have to turn it on yourself. It's still worth checking your own settings below — you may have switched it on at some point, or you may be using an account created outside those regions.

This guide explains what's actually happening, who should check their settings, and the exact steps to do it in both Gmail and Outlook.

What "AI Reading Your Email" Actually Means

The phrase sounds alarming, but the reality is more mundane — and in some ways more useful than you might expect.

When Gmail scans your email for AI features, automated systems process the text of your messages to generate Smart Reply suggestions ("Sounds good!", "Thanks, I'll take a look"), Smart Compose completions as you type, travel and purchase tracking cards, and — since the change in late 2025 — Gemini's ability to summarize a long email thread or answer questions like "What's the status of my Amazon order?"

No human at Google is reading your emails. That's worth saying plainly, because the phrase "AI reading your email" can conjure images that aren't accurate. What's happening is that your message text is being processed by machine-learning systems, similar in kind to how a spam filter works — just more capable and covering more use cases.

What changed around October 2025 is that this access was extended to Gemini. In the US and in other countries outside the EEA, Google switched that access from opt-in to opt-out — affecting a large share of the roughly 1.8 billion Gmail accounts worldwide. A class action lawsuit filed in November 2025 in California (Thele v. Google) argues that this switch happened without meaningful consent. Google maintains the change was disclosed in settings updates sent to users.

In the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland, and Japan, Google went the other way. Processing personal data at this scale requires explicit prior consent under GDPR and similar laws in those countries, not an opt-out after the fact — so Google's own help documentation states that Gemini and smart features stay off by default for accounts based in those regions. If you're in one of them and never turned these settings on yourself, they are very likely still off — though it's worth confirming with the steps below, since accounts created outside those regions, and Google Workspace accounts managed by an administrator, can be exceptions.

Microsoft Outlook has broadly equivalent features through Copilot, with similar settings you can adjust — though as covered in the Outlook section below, the deeper reading and summarizing features are tied to a paid Microsoft 365 subscription for personal accounts, unlike Gmail's free Smart features.

Should You Turn It Off?

If you're in the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, or Japan, you may have nothing to turn off. Because these settings require opt-in consent there, the large majority of Gmail accounts based in those regions already have Gemini and smart features switched off — you never turned them on. The steps below are still useful as a check that this is really the case, or as instructions for turning things off if you did enable them at some point, use an account created outside those regions, or use a Google Workspace account controlled by an administrator.

Not everyone needs to opt out. Here's a quick way to think about it.

Consider opting out if your inbox regularly contains sensitive information — business communications, legal correspondence, medical records, financial details — that you'd prefer not to have processed beyond basic spam filtering and delivery. The same applies if you're generally uncomfortable with the idea of any automated system having access to the full text of your emails, even without a human involved.

You might prefer to keep it on if you find the AI features genuinely useful — Smart Reply saves you time, email summaries help you catch up after a vacation, or you've been using Gemini to search your inbox. The processing is automated, not human, and for most everyday personal email the privacy trade-off is relatively modest.

A middle path: you can turn off Gemini's deeper access to your inbox while keeping Smart Reply and Smart Compose active. The steps below show you how.

Turn It Off in Gmail (Web)

Turn It Off in Gmail (Mobile — iPhone and Android)

Turn It Off in Outlook

Microsoft Outlook's equivalent settings live under Connected experiences and control what Copilot and other AI-powered Outlook features can access from your email.

Here's where Outlook differs from Gmail, though: Copilot's deeper features — reading, summarizing, and drafting replies based on your inbox content — are part of a paid Microsoft 365 subscription (Personal, Family, or Premium) for individual accounts, or a paid Copilot license at work. A free Outlook.com account does not get Copilot access to your inbox at that level on its own. The Connected experiences settings are still worth checking on a free account, though — they also govern smaller features (link previews, filling in contact details) that tend to be on by default regardless of whether you pay for Microsoft 365.

What You Lose When You Turn It Off

Being honest about the trade-off matters. These features stop working once you opt out:

In Gmail: Smart Reply buttons at the bottom of emails, Smart Compose auto-complete as you type, email thread summaries, purchase and travel tracking cards in your inbox, and Gemini's ability to answer questions about your emails ("Did I get a shipping confirmation for that order?").

In Outlook: Copilot email summaries, suggested replies based on thread context, and Copilot's ability to draft messages drawing on your email history.

If you use any of these regularly, consider the middle path mentioned above — turning off data sharing with other Google products and reviewing Gemini's access specifically, rather than disabling every Smart Feature at once.

What to Try Next

If you're reviewing your AI privacy settings more broadly, How to Opt Out of AI Training and Delete Your Data covers the chatbot side — what ChatGPT, Gemini, and others do with your conversations when you use those tools directly. For a bigger-picture view of what AI systems may already know about you, What Does AI Know About Me? is a useful next read.

Sources

• Learn about smart features & controls for Google Workspace & other Google products — Google (confirms smart features are off by default in the EEA, Japan, Switzerland, and the UK)
• Thele v. Google, LLC — Class Action.org (lawsuit over Gemini's opt-out default in the US)
• Are AI tools such as Gmail's Gemini accessing your emails? What you need to know — Runbox
• Connected experiences in Microsoft 365 — Microsoft
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Plans for Individuals — Microsoft (free vs. paid account features)