Hacker News Reader

Comment by UncleOxidant | Hacker News Reader

Isn't the worry here that Google is going to head in this same direction? (hasn't there been some indication that they are moving in this direction?)

View on HN

Google already made that and turned it off, so I think it's safe.

RIP Inbox

They can try to keep up :)

We have two major advantages: 1. We can use best-in-class AI tech, from any vendor (ie. OpenAI) -- whereas Google is only going to use their internal tech 2. We can take lots of UX risk when designing the perfect UI for an AI email client. Gmail has to be much more cautious given it's such a core, old, massive product.

>whereas Google is only going to use their internal tech

Really? I have a hard time seeing why this must be the case.

I have a hard time seeing why this wouldn't be the case.

You don't farm out your core business. Google didn't use a rebranded Yahoo search engine in 1998, did they? They need to be a leader in AI or they will die quickly.

Nah, I'm sure Google would eat their own dogfood. Right now their dogfood (Bard) doesn't seem very good compared to OpanAI, but I have to wonder if we're actually seeing what they really have. I suspect they're holding back the good stuff. They seem to have purposefully hamstrung what they've shown so far.

If you are using the OpenAI APIs then are all your user’s emails making it onto their servers?

Based on Andrew's response, yes it looks like they'll be using external AI services. But since their target customer is most likely someone who uses GMail, I don't think privacy is really a heavy focus for this product.

> They can try to keep up :)

I like this attitude. I'd also need to see something truly compelling and exciting in the Google sphere to bother with their products and features at all anymore. The graveyard is too huge not to hesitate.

You have a 3rd advantage.

3. You are not Google.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com