From WIRED · David Nield · · 1m 50s
I tested AI detection on my Gmail inbox
Pangram's AI detector scanned 108 email threads and found more than half were probably machine-written, mostly press releases.
In brief
Pangram's AI detector scanned 108 email threads and found more than half were probably machine-written, mostly press releases. Pangram's Gmail extension detected AI-written emails in a user's inbox with apparent accuracy, flagging over half of messages as likely machine-generated. Originally reported by WIRED.
AI is everywhere now
AI-generated content fills restaurant menus, student essays, movies and social media. In some digital spaces it overwhelms human-made content entirely.
Detecting AI in your inbox
Pangram makes a browser extension that sits in Gmail and runs incoming messages through algorithms to detect AI writing. The twenty dollar per month individual plan includes Gmail integration.
How to set up Pangram
Connect your Gmail account through Pangram's integration page. The tool scans your one hundred most recent email threads and any new messages after that. Email scanning doesn't count against your monthly scan credit limit.
What Pangram labels show
After scanning, your Pangram dashboard shows how many emails are suspected AI, probably human, or mixed.You can apply these as Gmail labels, send AI emails to archive or spam, and exclude specific domains or senders.
The inbox results
Out of one hundred eight threads scanned, eight were labeled AI, thirty-seven got the human label, and the remainder were marked as mixed. Press releases were the most common AI culprits.
Accuracy on known emails
Emails from friends, family and colleagues all passed the human test. An email written with Microsoft Copilot was correctly flagged as AI. A section of the article written by hand was marked human.
Limits of the detector
Pangram won't decide on emails below a minimum word count. Only the first email in each thread is scanned, so if someone switches to AI halfway through a conversation it won't be spotted.
In short
Pangram's Gmail extension detected AI-written emails in a user's inbox with apparent accuracy, flagging over half of messages as likely machine-generated.
