I can see how it is useful: for some people, reading and writing emails is a dreadful activity. But it is also an important facet of every human activity -- communication. So, it better be intentional and clear. I have turned off all smart features and let me handle how to say what I want to say.
Man I was in a Google News Initiative meeting and they started with a "fun poll" where they asked how you'd feel if you read an email that you knew was written by AI. Lots of people didn't mind knowing that was the case, and it was mainly for the reasons you put out writing emails is legit not fun for a lot of people.
Man I was so triggered though, like old-man-yelling-at-clouds level. Then I went back through gmail and exactly one of the last 50 most recent emails I've received was not an alert or a newsletter or an invite. IOW out of my last 50 emails only one of them would've fit the bill for an AI-written correspondence taking the place of a human-written one. All that butt-hurt and it doesn't even matter.
So long way of getting around to saying that your point about intentionality and clarity is clutch, and if people can get that with AI-written emails maybe I can cool my jets.
