Google is quietly testing a new shortcut in Messages called Insights and it does what it says on the label—and then some: give you just the nub of information related to a shared link, but without making you leave your conversation. (Though my beta withholding is coming to an end, so stay tuned.) Early signs from the newest beta show that the feature adds a Gemini-branded button to link previews, promising one-tap summaries that could potentially shave seconds off of every conversation and those seconds compound into, well, real time saved.
What the New Insights Button in Messages Does
Insights sits directly below a link preview you receive in a one-on-one or group chat, denoted by the Gemini icon we've all grown to love.
Tap it, and the idea is you’d get a smallish, AI-generated nugget to take away from the page — something not just its headline but key points that should help inform whether you want to open it now. In its current half-completed form discovered in a recent Messages beta build, it’s there but it spits back out a placeholder notice letting you know that the service is not yet operational.
Two quirks are notable. First, the button simply isn’t present on links you send out; it’s only turned loose on links that other people share with you — fair enough since we assume you’d know what you just sent. And two: testers say it shows up when the “Show only web link previews” feature is turned on in Messages settings. That tie-in indicates that Insights taps the preview logic to retrieve the page and summarize it.
Why One-Tap Summaries in Messages Matter
Messaging is how decisions are made — where to get together, which article to read, what product to buy. But bouncing in and out of a browser to vet every link creates some friction. A digest in reply can save a link click and the disruption of your current activity and keep conversation from stalling. Multiply that by the number of links exchanged in active group chats and the productivity gain is clear.
There is also a scale story here. Google has stated that the adoption of RCS in Messages is over a billion monthly active users and late-breaking QOL improvements seem equally significant at that scale. If nothing more than a sliver of those users rely on summaries rather than following every link, that translates into millions of saved page loads and an actual reduction in cognitive overhead.
Powered By Gemini With Some Existing Preview Tech
Gemini branding cues what’s going on behind the scenes: large language models parsing the page into salient points. Google already employs a similar summarization function in its Workspace suite — you know, things like “summarize this email thread” for Gmail or “help me write” with Docs — so rolling that feature out to Messages would seem to be the next logical step.
A central implementation question regards where the summary is produced. Messages already pulls metadata in order to make a summary of a link; an entire summary likely demands fetching more of the page. Depending on region, settings and device, Google might route this to cloud-hosted Gemini models or lighter on-device models for privacy and latency.
You can expect the usual safeguards:
- Blocking unwanted senders
- Respecting cellular data preferences
- Identifying paywalled or login-gated pages that are not amenable to summarization
How It Fits Into Google’s Messaging Roadmap
Insights adds to a series of user-facing refinements in Messages, from threaded reactions and improved link previews to ongoing tests like @mentions and granular group chat controls. More broadly, it’s representative of Google’s approach to integrating Gemini into the fabric of daily touchpoints where you might expect a little assist to feel unobtrusive — quick answers at low ceremony.
It also reflects a broader industry shift toward “zero-click” knowledge. Apple, Meta and others are nudging AI into the chat context, but Google’s head start is its existing messaging preview pipeline and RCS footprint. Done well, Insights could end up as invisible and indispensable as Smart Reply — there when you need it, gone when you don’t.
What To Expect and How To Try Insights Yourself
Insights has not yet gone live, and is inactive for many users despite them receiving some strings in a recent beta build. Like other Messages trials, availability is pretty hit-or-miss and subject to server-side gating and/or arbitrary country/region tiering.
If you want to be prepared for it when it lands:
- Sign up for the Google Messages beta through Play Store
- Make sure you’re one of the lucky people who has access to RCS messaging
- Turn on the “Show only web link previews” in settings
Once Google flips the switch on its end, you should see a Gemini icon under link previews that you get. And if you never want AI in your chat flow, keep an eye out for a toggle — Google usually offers opt-outs for Gemini stuff across its apps.
The upshot: One little button, one little synopsis, and one less tap. If Insights can give you reliable, skimmable takeaways without ever jerking your attention away from the conversation, that’s the kind of micro-optimization work that quickly becomes indispensable.
