More artificial intelligence is being implanted into Gmail as Google tries to turn the world’s most popular email service into a personal assistant that can improve writing, summarize far-flung information buried in inboxes and deliver daily to-do lists.

The new AI features announced Thursday could herald a pivotal moment for Gmail, a service that transformed email when it was introduced nearly 22 years ago. Since then, Gmail has amassed more than 3 billion users to become nearly as ubiquitous as Google’s search engine.

Gmail’s new AI options will only be available in English within the United States for starters, but the company is promising to expand the technology to other countries and other languages as the year unfolds.

The most broadly available tool will be a “Help Me Write” option designed to learn a user’s writing style so it can personalize emails and make real-time suggestions on how to burnish the message.

Jobless applications tick up

U.S. filings for jobless benefits rose in the last week of 2025 but remain historically low, despite signs that the labor market is weakening.

The number of Americans filing for jobless claims for the week ending Jan. 3 rose by 8,000 to 208,000, up from 200,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Last month, the government reported that the U.S. gained 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration. That helped to push the unemployment rate up to 4.6%, the highest since 2021.

The government’s December jobs report will be released Friday, with analysts expecting that the U.S. added 55,000 non-farm jobs.