Google is opening up yet another of its highest-paid Gemini features to people who don’t want to pay for an AI subscription. Google unveiled Daily Brief in May, during its annual I/O developers conference. The feature is intended to gather information from your emails, upcoming events in your calendar, and content from your Gemini chats and then deliver them directly to your device. This is intended to help you stay up to date with everything that’s going on in your life.
While it was initially rolled out as part of Gemini’s AI Plus, Pro, or Ultra subscriptions, Google is now rolling it out to free users in the US. Given that Google just completely removed Google Assistant earlier this month, it makes sense that it would release Daily Brief to everyone as soon as possible afterward, especially since Gemini is supposed to replace Assistant overall.
If your mornings usually consist of digging through your Gmail and checking your calendar, then Daily Brief might be worth checking out. This is also far from the first premium feature the company has offered to free Gemini users. The company previously made Gemini Live camera and screen sharing free on Android, giving users another reason to try the chatbot without committing to a monthly bill.
How to start using Gemini Daily Brief
If you want to try Daily Brief, you’ll need to connect your Google workspace to the Gemini app, then enable Memory in Gemini’s Personal Intelligence settings. This allows Google to extract context from your Gmail and other workspace features. You’ll also need to enable Google’s “Smart features in other Google products” setting. Another important note is that Daily Brief is only available to adults using personal Google accounts. Work and school accounts are not supported.
Once everything is set up, you’ll find your Daily Brief in the Gemini sidebar. By default, Google divides the brief into a few different sections, including one that focuses on the items most likely to need your attention sooner, while the others break down suggestions for your long-term goals. Where Daily Brief differs from a simple to-do list is that you can click and discuss any of the tasks noted in your brief to learn more.
You can also check where the article came from, to determine if you actually want to pay attention to it. If you use Daily Brief and find tasks you want to pay attention to, you can immediately open emails, write responses to those emails, and even schedule events or reminders directly from the Daily Brief itself.
First check what you share with Gemini
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There is, however, one slight caveat to all the convenience that Daily Brief offers, and that is the fact that Gemini needs access to your personal information to create a useful to-do list. Its ability to remember past conversations is part of what makes Daily Brief a potentially powerful option, so if you’ve turned off memory in Gemini in the past – perhaps in an effort to make your Google account more private and not pass your personal data into it – then you’ll need to turn it back on before you can even use Daily Brief.
Google notes that information connected to Gemini can be used to help train its generative AI models. Some information may also be reviewed by humans, including summaries, excerpts and inferences from relevant emails and files. For this reason, you should avoid connecting apps that may contain confidential information that you do not want used to train the AI or potentially viewed by a human reviewer.
If you try Daily Brief and don’t find it useful, you can always turn it off through Personal Intelligence settings. However, for Gemini to stop using information that it has already memorized, it will take a few more steps. Google says you’ll need to delete chats containing this information and make sure you’ve logged out any apps you don’t want information from. Otherwise, the information may remain available for an indefinite period.
