The era of 20% email open rates is not the end game. AI enables 'uncomfortably specific' targeting in subject lines and content, which can dramatically boost engagement. This has the potential to bring open rates back towards the highly effective levels seen in email's early days.

Polls showing negative sentiment towards AI are misleading and easily manipulated. The real signal is behavior. Like people who claim to dislike social media but use it daily, consumers are adopting AI tools at an unprecedented rate, with high usage and retention. This 'revealed preference' trumps survey answers.

Contrary to common privacy concerns, a recent survey found that over 70% of people are 'very' or 'somewhat' comfortable with AI tools reading their emails. This suggests consumers value the convenience and organization of AI-surfaced deals more than potential privacy intrusions, especially in cluttered promotional inboxes.

Don't fear that AI summaries in Gmail and Apple Mail will kill your open rates. If your content is genuinely valuable, people will still open it to get the full experience, just as they'd watch a favorite show instead of reading a synopsis. AI simply helps users filter out the noise.

As AI tools become ubiquitous, customer expectations will shift. Receiving an irrelevant ad or email will no longer be a minor annoyance but a signal that the brand is technologically inept. Personalization is evolving from a competitive advantage to a basic requirement for brand credibility.

Surveys show public panic about AI's impact on jobs and society. However, revealed preferences—actual user behavior—show massive, enthusiastic adoption for daily tasks, from work to personal relationships. Watch what people do, not what they say.

SaaStr tested both disclosing and hiding that their outreach came from AI agents and found it made no difference in response rates. As long as the email is relevant and useful, prospects are willing to engage, proving that value trumps the human-versus-AI distinction in sales communication.

Despite general tech fatigue, users are reacting positively to Google's AI features in Gmail. This suggests strong demand for AI tools that solve concrete, everyday problems like managing bills and appointments, rather than more abstract or flashy applications.

By summarizing emails and suggesting 'to-dos', Google is embedding agentic AI into a daily habit for over two billion users. This strategy serves as a massive, low-friction entry point to familiarize consumers with AI assistants that perform tasks on their behalf, potentially driving mass adoption for its Gemini ecosystem.