What Gmail, Apple, and Outlook are doing to your emails

Today’s feature is a guest post from Katelyn Baughan, a nonprofit email consultant and the founder of KB Digital, where she helps mission-driven teams turn inbox attention into measurable impact.

With 10+ years leading data-driven, multimillion-dollar programs for organizations like National Geographic, Amnesty International, UNHCR, The Trevor Project, The Cancer Research Institute, and National Breast Cancer Foundation, she blends storytelling with testing and data to inspire generosity at scale.

AI summaries in email are here. And they’re coming for all of us.

Gmail has them. Apple Intelligence is rolling them out to everyone with their latest update. Outlook’s Copilot is doing the same. 

You might not be seeing AI summaries in your own inbox yet, but trust me — your donors and subscribers will be, very soon.

So what does this mean for your nonprofit’s email strategy? Here’s the big shift:

It’s no longer about the prettiest email
For years, we’ve been told to design beautiful emails with big hero images, gorgeous graphics, and bold visual storytelling. 

And while design still matters, there’s a new rule we all need to play by.

All three major AI summary tools — Gmail, Apple, and Outlook — are doing the same thing.

They’re scanning the first 150-200 characters of your email, looking for something called live text.

What is live text?
Live text is actual written words in your email’s HTML code. 

Not text inside an image. Not alt text (testing has confirmed alt text does NOT count). 

It’s the real, readable words a subscriber can highlight with their cursor.

The good news? Your hyperlinked links DO count as live text.

What this means for your nonprofit emails right now
Your most critical message — your hero stat, your call to action, your emotional hook — needs to live in the first 150-200 characters as actual written text. 

Not buried in an image. Not implied through design. Written out, plain and clear.

Because if AI is summarizing your appeal for a donor before they ever open it, you want that summary to say “Help provide 500 meals this Thanksgiving” — not “Image. Image. Click here.”

What you can do to win AI summaries
My recommendation: Start testing this NOW.

Pull up your last three email campaigns. Look at the first 200 characters. 

Is the most important message there in live text? Or is it locked inside a beautiful header image?

The bottom line
Fast forward a year or two, and the nonprofits winning in the inbox won’t be the ones with the prettiest designs. 

They’ll be the ones who understood what the AI tools were looking for — and adapted early.

Check our events list for more or reply to this email to submit one for consideration.

‘Til next time!
Sara