AI Is Summarizing Your Emails. Here’s What Associations Need to Change.
AI is already changing how your members experience email.
Gmail has Gemini. Outlook has Copilot. Apple Mail summarizes messages. Other AI tools can connect directly to inboxes and help users find and understand information.
Your member may not read your entire email anymore.
When AI is summarizing your emails, AI may read it first and tell your member what what matters.
For association marketers, that means two things: AI needs to understand your email, and your emails need to be relevant enough to matter in the first place.
What should associations be worried about?
I've been saying this for the past year: Associations that oversend irrelevant emails will struggle in an AI-driven inbox. Associations that send relevant, well-segmented emails that members engage with will be in a much better position.
AI is increasingly helping people sort through crowded inboxes and surface what matters to them.
If your members consistently ignore your emails, send volume isn't going to solve that problem. Neither is a better subject line.
The answer is better segmentation, better content and fewer emails people don't want.
And now there's another consideration: Can AI quickly understand the emails you do send?
4 things to change now to help AI summarize emails
Put the most important information at the top.
Look at the first 200 words of your email. Could AI understand what this email is about, why it matters and what the member needs to do?
Don't bury: Early bird registration ends Friday. Your membership expires December 31. Applications close tomorrow.
Put mission-critical information first.
Don't hide important information in an image.
If your conference date, deadline, discount or other critical information appears in a graphic, repeat it as live text in the email.
Don't assume an AI summary will pull the information you need from an image.
If members need to know it, write it.
3. Make your images useful.
Add descriptive alt text to your images and hyperlink images when there is a logical next step.
This is already good accessibility and email practice. An AI-driven inbox makes clear, structured content even more important.
4. Send fewer irrelevant emails.
This one takes time.
Segment your audiences. Pay attention to engagement. Respect member preferences. Coordinate your sends. Stop automatically responding to disappointing numbers with “send one more email.”
AI is being built to help people cut through inbox clutter.
Don't let your association become the clutter.
The good news? This isn't a completely new email strategy.
The fundamentals still work! Send the right email to the right person. Lead with what matters. Write clearly. Make important information easy to find. And pay attention when your members tell you, through their behavior, what they do and don't want.
AI is simply making those fundamentals much harder to ignore.
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