Gmail and Gemini AI

Hey team!

I have heard that Gemini AI has been released across Gmail and brands are experiencing lower CTR's and inflated OR's across sends.

Have any other brands experienced this?

We have seen CTR's been declining for a while now, but have no correlation if it is this impact so wondered if others are seeing the same?

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Nirnay

Hey @meg_kerry We’ve looked into this on our side, specifically around the Jan 8 Gemini rollout. We ran a before vs after analysis and also a difference-in-differences test (Gmail vs non-Gmail) to isolate any Gmail-specific impact.

At an aggregate level, Gmail CTR has not declined post-launch, in fact, it increased. When isolating our US base (where Gemini rollout began), we still don’t see an absolute drop in Gmail CTR. However, Gmail has underperformed slightly relative to non-Gmail domains over the same period.

So at this stage, we’re not seeing clear evidence of a material CTR decline directly attributable to Gemini. That said, Gmail’s relative performance has been weaker than other providers, so it’s something we’ll continue monitoring, particularly as rollout expands and adoption increases.

Would be interested to hear if others are seeing a different pattern.

Selman_Balci

Hello @meg_kerry,

I was checking the convos around CRM people and came across to this topic as well.

Hypothesis is that Gmail's AI is auto-opening emails to generate summaries which inflates your open count.

Gmail rolled out Gemini AI across all inboxes.
And it is changing how email metrics work.

Open rates are up. 45.6% according to Omeda's latest report and click-through rates dropped from 4.35% to 3.93%.

And some new subscribers behaviours are emerging: The click rate data decrease suggest that they seems to be reading the AI snippet and moving on without actually clicking.

Some says, this is the biggest shift in email deliverability since Gmail introduced tabs in 2013?

I don’t know if it is but the gap between well-structured and poorly-structured emails is widening under AI filtering i.e. not frontloading value proposition, burying CTA

* Source: https://www.omeda.com/resources/whitepapers/email-engagement-report-q4-2025/

I didnt notice anything specifically but it makes sense to me.

fyi )

TedScott

Are you using unique click through rate (not click to open rate)?

Have you started a program to suppress unengaged from your mailings?

meg_kerry

Thanks everyone for coming back on this.

I have taken a look at CTR's for our business , isolating gmail and we have not seen any impacts isolated to gmail as a mail provider.

I found that article you shared Selman super interesting, so thank you for sharing that.

I have asked my global counterparts if they are experiencing the same and can report back.