Gmail Dominates U.S. Market

Google's announcement that it was rolling out its Gemini AI assistant to the Gmail service has left its many users feeling anxious and appalled at the thought that a generative AI would be reading their personal emails. In its March 20 statement, Google highlighted the upsides for users, which were described as finding relevant information in inboxes faster through the service prioritizing emails from frequent contacts and previously opened messages in the future. But the fact that a generative AI tool would hardly be necessary to carry out these specific changes might make users feel even more suspicious that their emails might in fact be used to train AI models.

Gmail and related e-mail adresses given out by Google positively dominate the U.S. market, with three quarters of respondents to a survey by Statista Consumer Insights saying they were currently using the service (as a primary provider or among others). Yahoo came a quite distant second at around a third of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 saying they were signed up with the company. Also among the most popular options were email services by those providers which enable webmailing and email by application, like Microsoft Outlook, AOL Mail, AT&T Mail and those of similar telecommunications providers. AOL and its email service, despite having become a symbol of a bygone era of early internet adoption, continues to be used by 10 percent of Americans of the above-mentioned age group.