Your inbox is under siege, and it's only getting worse. With the holidays just around the corner, the FBI has once again warned about a surge in email and website threats. And according to cybersecurity reports, this holiday season is shaping up to be the most dangerous yet. Even though Google claims that it “blocks more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware in Gmail,” it’s still not enough. But change is coming, and for Gmail’s 2.5 billion users, 2025 could be the year your email address needs to go—if you want to stay secure.
AI in Gmail: Helping or Harming?
Gmail, the world's largest email provider with over 2.5 billion users, is rolling out some major upgrades. The company is using cutting-edge AI models to bolster Gmail’s defenses, including a new language model (LLM) specifically trained to fight phishing, malware, and spam. While these advancements are promising, there’s a catch: as AI becomes more sophisticated and accessible, cybercriminals are also harnessing it to create more convincing and personalized scams.
Email, for all its innovation, still has a fundamental flaw: it’s built on an outdated architecture. Anyone with your email address can potentially access your inbox. Worse, those email addresses are often scattered all over the internet—harvested, leaked, or stored by various services. According to Mailmodo, spam messages now account for nearly 47% of all email traffic. That’s why businesses are increasingly turning to alternatives like Teams, Slack, and other messaging platforms to reduce the noise in their inboxes.
The Answer: More Privacy, Less Spam
The real issue is that email addresses, which often double as user credentials for various online services, are too easily accessible. They’re handed out freely, often without thought to the security risks. Apple has taken a step in the right direction with its "Hide My Email" feature, allowing users to generate unique, random email addresses that forward to their primary inbox. This way, users don’t have to share their real email address when signing up for services or newsletters.
Google is reportedly working on something similar for Gmail. In fact, in a recent teardown of an Android APK, Android Authority discovered a feature called "Shielded Email." This would allow users to create single-use or limited-use email aliases that forward to their primary account. It’s a major step forward, and when it arrives, you should take full advantage of it.
The Impact of Email Aliases on Marketers
Apple’s Hide My Email has already created some challenges for marketers. One of the main issues is that users can now generate as many disposable email addresses as they like, which could lead to a dramatic drop in engagement. Moreover, since these email addresses can be deactivated at will without affecting the user’s primary address, marketing databases could soon be filled with “dead” addresses—reducing deliverability rates and damaging sender reputations.
Google assures users that its AI-powered language model can now block 20% more spam than before and reviews 1,000 times more user-reported spam daily. However, experts predict that the situation will only get worse. AI is giving cybercriminals the tools to create highly personalized and convincing phishing attacks, making it harder to detect scams. As these AI tools continue to evolve, these types of attacks will only grow in sophistication.
A More Radical Approach to Email Security
So, what’s the solution? While central spam filters are improving, email security needs a more radical overhaul. Here are a few key improvements that could make a real difference:
On-Device AI: While Gmail’s AI helps block threats at the server level, there’s still plenty of malicious content that gets through to your inbox. On-device AI could detect spam and malicious emails after they’ve passed through initial screening. Imagine receiving an email that looks like it’s from Apple Support, but the email address is clearly a fake. On-device AI could catch this before you ever see it.
Better Opt-In and Known Sender Solutions: Trusting senders should be a simple and automatic process. We need a more robust solution that lets users easily opt into trusted conversations while filtering out the noise. This would mimic secure messaging platforms, where you know the sender is who they say they are.
Smarter Device-Side Email Protection: Just like modern browsers use AI to detect malware, email systems could benefit from similar technology. This would offer an additional layer of security, especially when combined with server-side spam filters.
Elon Musk and the Future of Email
Meanwhile, Elon Musk continues to tease the idea of launching a new email service, possibly called "Xmail." His vision for blending email and messaging into a single, unified platform could provide the kind of streamlined, secure experience many users are craving. Musk has suggested that his approach would eliminate many of the messier aspects of traditional email, like spam and untrusted senders. While such a transition might be complicated, it raises an important question: Do we need to reinvent email entirely to make it more secure and user-friendly?
RCS: Another Front in the Battle Against Spam
Gmail isn’t the only messaging platform facing major security challenges. RCS (Rich Communication Services), the messaging standard for Android phones, has also been under fire. With RCS, the ability to send messages using just a phone number makes it a prime target for spammers. Just like email, RCS lacks a solid, universal filter for spam, leaving it to individual messaging apps to implement their own security measures.
Recently, Android Police raised concerns that RCS messaging has become a new avenue for spam, similar to how email has been plagued for years. While RCS spam can’t be fully eliminated, improvements in AI-driven spam filtering could make a significant impact in the coming years. Fine-tuned language models, combined with natural language processing (NLP), have the potential to reduce RCS spam dramatically—just as they’re improving email security.
The Bottom Line: Take Control of Your Email
In the end, we’re left with the same basic advice: take control of your email security now. With 2025 fast approaching, consider using tools like Gmail’s Shielded Email and Apple’s Hide My Email to protect your primary address. If you’ve had the same email address for years, it might already be a magnet for spam. It could be time to switch things up, creating new masked addresses to forward to your main account. Slowly migrate your communications, and use filters and rules to manage your old address.
The new email masking technologies are great, but they’re only effective if your primary email address isn’t already compromised. So, as the new year approaches, consider a little digital housekeeping. Take a closer look at the email addresses you’re using, and make sure you’re not putting your personal information at risk.
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