I spent six months building an AI-powered email tool. Then I deleted half of it.
Not because the model was bad. Not because the embeddings were off. Because I finally noticed what every "AI inbox" on the market — including the one I was building — was actually doing.
They were surfacing more.
More "smart suggestions". More "priority signals". More "AI-drafted replies waiting for your review". More badges, more banners, more nudges. Every product in the category was racing to add a new surface and call it intelligence.
My six-month-old prototype did all of that. I used it every day. And every morning the inbox was just as loud as the day I started. The model was right about which emails mattered. I still read all the other ones anyway, because they were right there, with a little colored dot suggesting maybe-they-mattered-too.
