South Africa, July 13 -- Delivering the keynote, titled "Dear Stranger: The New Intimacy of the Modern Inbox," entrepreneur and technologist Musa Kalenga argued that artificial intelligence has inserted itself between senders and recipients.

AI-powered inbox features in a growing number of email platforms increasingly summarise, prioritise and filter messages before recipients see them, he said, arguing that "deliverability is now desirability."

As AI assistants become more common in email platforms, marketers need to optimise messages not only for recipients but also for the systems that determine which emails are surfaced, summarised or deprioritised.

Citing industry data, Kalenga said there are around 4.6 billion email users worldwi...