Apple released Apple Intelligence (Apple AI) with the release of the iPhone 16 this past October. Apple Mail (the default mail client on the iPhone) leverages Apple AI and has started replacing preview text of emails within the Locked Screen, List Screen and Message Screen with their own summary of the email content.
While this may be helpful for email recipients to truly understand the content of a message, it has left marketers perplexed in some cases, unable to control the brand experience in Apple Mail, which often accounts for over half of opens for B2C brands.
We’ve long given the advice to use the subject line and preheader space to compel your subscribers with one story–but now that advice is thrown out the window in some ways. Using mysterious language to entice a reader to open your email is no longer an option, since the main offer or content will almost certainly be featured.
This means shifting your focus to creating clear, concise body content within the email itself, and making sure the live text is readable and coded with a proper structure. It also means alt text for all imagery has never been more important, so using a tool like Inbox Monster to check every image for alt text is key.
In some cases, Apple Mail users have reported a mismatch between the email content and the AI preview text. For example, some summaries don’t pick up on context or irony and misreport the facts, which is why testing is so important before you hit the send button.
We have now added a new iPhone 16 device within our previews that has AI enabled and showcases the Apple AI summary within the device preview, so you can know how your content will be summarized. This new preview is enabled by default for all clients, so they can start testing and optimizing their email content for this new reality. If you’d like to check it out, just drop us a line at sales@inboxmonster.com so we can test out your next send.
