Superhuman Revolutionizes Email with AI That Writes Like You

Superhuman and AI Serving Inboxes

Since the rise of advanced language models, companies have been looking to lighten the burden of overloaded inboxes. By using artificial intelligence, they aim to sort emails and draft responses that align with the user's style. Superhuman, an email client, recently unveiled an enhanced version of its automatic draft feature. This update not only identifies important emails but also generates responses that feel less artificial.

Superhuman is not new to this endeavor. In the past, the company has offered features such as instant replies and automatic follow-up drafts. However, these tools tended to produce messages that resembled those of an overly enthusiastic virtual assistant, which limited their usability. The new version of the automatic draft feature seems to mark a departure from the past. After testing the beta version, I was able to send some emails with little to no modifications, a clear sign of improvement.

Increased Personalization of Responses

The Superhuman app is capable of determining which emails require a response and drafting a message inspired by your usual tone. Additionally, it offers two other response variants, providing the user with options.

During my trials, I observed drafts that accepted embargoes or requested further details on a proposal. Others confirmed appointments, ready to be sent with only minor adjustments. The feature also managed to generate responses to article requests for TechCrunch, specifying that I do not handle such requests, in line with TechCrunch's policy of not accepting articles written by external contributors.

Imperfections to Address

Despite its advancements, the feature is not infallible. By default, it tends to generate positive responses to proposals or accept meetings at improbable times, such as after midnight. Fortunately, it is possible to quickly choose another option from the suggested variants and send it.

The feature learns from your interactions and refines its suggestions. For example, after generating a draft for a meeting at midnight, it was able to propose a more appropriate response during a subsequent similar request.

A Tool for Managing Email Influx

Each month, I receive thousands of emails, partly thanks to AI helping other professionals draft their initial messages. While I am not ready to fully entrust my inbox to AI, this feature could help me respond to more people, especially when the messages do not require lengthy replies.

Users have the option to personalize their emails by accessing Settings > Personalization, where they can add personal and professional information, as well as files or links to enrich the context.

The Impact of Advanced Technology on Superhuman

Rahul Vohra, co-founder of Superhuman, shared interesting statistics during the testing phase. He revealed that 40% of the automatically generated drafts were sent within 24 hours, and that 60% of them were sent without any manual modifications.

Vohra also explained that previous features, such as instant replies, relied on older models like GPT-3.5, which were less sophisticated or had a more limited context window. Today, Superhuman uses a set of models to optimize this feature.

"We now use a mix of cutting-edge models from Anthropic and OpenAI to maximize intelligence and context in our responses," he stated.

Last year, Superhuman was acquired by Grammarly, which has since rebranded the company. Currently, the company is working on an assistant called Superhuman Go, designed to operate across multiple platforms while maintaining context from one application to another.