Google now blends ads with the rest of your email on the Gmail browser version instead of displaying them at the top of your inbox. Commercials are visually designed to look like regular emails, except for the “Advertisement” sticker.

This is an ad that appears when users have tabs enabled in Gmail. These are for categories like social media, updates, forums, and ads and serve to make your inbox experience more straightforward. Ads used to be displayed at the top of various “inboxes”, but they now also display scattered over those inboxes for some users, which makes them much easier to see as actual emails and reduces the feeling of obviousness. Users have also reported seeing more than two ads at once, while two ads was always the default.

that According to research by 9to5Google. Tweakers testing using their own Gmail inbox showed that Gmail displayed ads at the top of tabs, but not mixed in with the rest of the emails. There were no more than two commercials. As is often the case with services with many users, this may involve the gradual introduction of new functionality. Of course, it can also be a test and this change is not final yet. It is not clear how many users are affected by this and where they are located.

9to5Google also found that Google is showing more active ads in the Gmail app. The Updates tab hasn’t shown any ads yet, but now it does. In both the browser and app version, there is still no advertisement displayed in the Main Inbox. Those who have disabled categories in the inbox won’t see any ads either.

As someone who works so hard to keep my email in check, I’m totally excited that Gmail is putting random ads in my inbox right now??? pic.twitter.com/5LompTLLPL

– rosemary h (@employee) May 3, 2023