How Do You Control What an AI Agent Can Do in Your Gmail?
One of the things that I like to do with my agents is I give them guardrails. I tell them what they can do and what they can't do. And this is just as important of telling your agent what you want it to achieve.
One of the cool things about this platform is compared to other AI systems, you get a lot of control over what it has access to.
Open Gmail under connectors
I'm going to click under the connectors section, Gmail. I'm clicking on Gmail under connectors. What happens is it opens up a new screen. This allows me to have extra clarity and control over what my agent does. Some people may have heard of the term harness for AI agents. This is a non-technical way to manage what the agent does.
Hear this at 43:33 in the recording.
Read-only tools versus write and delete tools
Under tool management, I'm going to select read only tools. There are six options underneath there. I can then restrict or give permission to my agent on what I wanted to read only. Beneath that section, there are write/delete tools. And in that section, I can then give permission or restrict access to sending emails, updating, creating drafts, forwarding emails, et cetera. One of the reasons why I like this feature, many of the other tools don't yet provide this level of detail when you're giving your AI system access to a tool on what you can restrict and give permissions for. So that's where we would find that.
Hear this at 43:59 in the recording.
How to remove access or switch accounts
I'm now going to go back to the connectors section. Let's say I want to switch my email account on Gmail to my business account. On the connectors section under Gmail, on the far right side, there is a circle with a check mark and next to it three dots. If I click on the three dots, it allows me to switch an account, but it also gives me access to easily remove access. So there, I can easily remove access from Gmail. So just like that, my Gmail access has been removed. I'm going to re-add it for the purpose of demo, but I wanted to demonstrate how you remove access.
Hear this at 44:45 in the recording.
What a password change does
It's also important for me to note here, if you change your password in any system that you've given your Gumloop access to, your Gumloop will no longer be able to access that system. So you would have to come back into Gumloop and reauthorize that permission for it to continue to work. So whenever you change your password in a system connected to Gumloop, you have to come back to Gumloop and reauthorize permissions. It won't automatically update once those passwords are changed.
Hear this at 45:28 in the recording.
Where this comes from
Every sentence above is Jacqueline V. Twillie's own, spoken live with Women Applying AI on October 7, 2026. The headings, questions, timestamps and links are the only additions. Filler words are cut, and a passage that skips a few seconds starts at the timestamp shown.
Build Your First AI Agent in One Hour: the full build, with the clips, the prompts and the transcript. This article's clip is Read-only tools versus write and delete tools.
Related reading: What Are Read-Only Tools for AI Agents?, What Is an AI Agent Harness?, How Do You Practice With an AI Agent Without Risking Real Data?.
Frequently asked questions
Do you work for Gumloop?
I don't work for Gumloop. I found this tool over the summer through Lenny's podcast, and I started using it and have since made myself an ambassador for them. I've created a relationship with Gumloop.
I am not comfortable connecting my real inbox. What do I do?
What a lot of folks are doing is setting up an agent account and only forwarding information that they want the agent to read. Yes, it is an extra step, but it's a great way to be comfortable with the level of access that you're giving to a system. So you can select a dummy account. What I recommend just starting out, most of us have an email account that we send like promotional emails, spam emails to just use that account to get started.
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