Hey Everyone,
In recent months Microsoft is saying that its BingAI is a copilot for how we navigate the web and that its A.I. will help us be more productive. Iām not sure thatās true, although I do think Notion A.I.ās product might be closer to that in reality.
ChatGPT is now running inside Snapchat, Notion, and other apps and the ChatGPT API is going to make things interesting if a bit generic feeling. You can even save your ChatGPT discussions inside of Notion.
Notion recently rolled out its Notion A.I. to everyone. Notion is a freemium productivity and note-taking web application developed by Notion Labs Inc. It offers organizational tools including task management, project tracking, to-do lists, bookmarking, and more. It has gained popularity in the remote work world and seems well liked.
Among other things, The āNotion AIā feature automates the creation of written content in the app, including blog posts, brainstorming ideas, to-do lists, and even literary works, using generative artificial intelligence.
Notion itself says the following:
Generate an instant summary from a page of messy notes. Start a new line, hit
space
on your keyboard, then select āSummarize.āBecome a more effective communicator. Highlight a paragraph you wrote, click āAsk AIā in the toolbar that appears, and select āImprove writing.ā
Approach projects with new creativity. Create a new page, click āStart writing with AI,ā and ask it to list pros & cons of a decision youāre considering.
Notion is a connected workspace where your team can create docs, take notes, manage tasks, and organize your work ā all in one place. And now, with Notion AI, you can augment your capabilities in new and unexpected ways. This is the sort of productivity product where A.I. like the ChatGPT API actually begins to make real sense.
For $10 per user per month, Notion can now summarize meeting notes, generate lists of pros and cons, and draft emails. It seems that Casey Newton recently did a campaign with them to promote this launch.
It has a free trial
Notion is calling its A.I. a āthought partnerā. That sounds similar to how Microsoft refers to their A.I. as a ācopilotā.
It makes you wonder about the onboarding to the AI-human hybrid workplace and the future of work.
According to Notion, more than 2 million people signed up for the waitlist the company put in place for users to try the alpha version of Notion AI. After 10 weeks of testing, the company found most testers werenāt asking Notion AI to write blog posts and marketing emails from scratch. Instead, they were using it to refine their own writing.
Much in the way we already use other tools, this is the most obvious use case.
Is Notion A.I. then a Writing Tool?
Notion AI includes a formatting menu that includes options to prompt the companyās machine-learning algorithm to do things like shorten or extend the length of your text, change the tone and fix any spelling and grammatical errors.
I have myself wanted to play around with Lex, Quill Bot, among so many other tools. Someone recently told me my typos in my Newsletters deserve a premium Grammarly subscription, I didnāt have the heart to tell them I couldnāt afford it.
The company also found people frequently used Notion AIās āimprove writingā option, a feature the company likens to a one-click enhancer for words.
Certainly we use A.I. for more than just writing though, even within a productivity suite?
Notion AI is among the first in a wave of companies that are racing to capitalize on growing interest in generative AI. The problem is there are so many of these tools it nearly become a bit daunting just to find the right ones. Notion AI is a creative tool that can help you write, brainstorm, edit, summarize, and perform other tasks.
The company has said that all users will get 20 free AI credits to test the features.
I am not a Notion user, but I think productivity software can get better using A.I. But if we are mostly using A.I. for our writing then the Grammarly and Jasper.AI is a pretty big total addressable market. Here are some of the usual tools that are often recommended.
āWrite faster, think bigger, and augment creativity."
I do think brainstorming features are interesting and fine-tuning writing or paraphrasing (Quillbot).
Notion goes on to state the following:
FAQs
How do I activate Notion AI?
Notion AI is available to all users. You can prompt AI using your space bar, highlighting text and selecting "Ask AI", or via slash commands. You must take action for AI to activate.
It will not generate content or send requests to our AI providers unless you perform one of the actions above. You are in control.
How is Notion different from other AI tools?
Notion certainly isnāt the only AI-powered tool out there. But hereās what makes Notion AI special:
Artificial intelligence becomes more useful when itās integrated across the place where youāre already doing your work, storing notes & docs, and collaborating with others. No need to switch back and forth between your notes and a separate AI-powered tool.
Compared to other tools, Notion has a unique and highly flexible drag-and-drop text editor, where any AI-generated content can be easily rearranged and transformed. Over time, Notion AI will be able to take advantage of even more Notion features.
Today, Notion AI has many uses across your notes and docs. But Notion can do a lot more than just notes ā weāll continue to expand Notion AIās capabilities to help with project management and other tasks.
The idea of using A.I. in our workflows is neat, but not all of us are sold on this idea: Back in November, 2022 this is how the company say us using Notion A.I.:
Let it tackle that first draft ā the first word can often be the hardest one to write. Instead, ask Notion AI to handle your first draft about a topic and get some ideas for you to turn into something great.
Spur ideas and creativity ā instantly get a list of ideas about anything. This can help you be more creative, surfacing ideas as a jumping off point (or some you wouldnāt even have thought of).
Act as your hawk-eyed editor ā whether itās spelling, grammar, or even translation, Notion AI catches mistakes or translates whole posts to help ensure writing is accurate and actionable.
Summarize a long meeting or document ā instead of sifting through a garble of meeting notes, let Notion AI pull out the most important points and action items.
I think itās worth a try if you already like using productivity software. However I donāt believe paid subscriptions of these tools are a great idea as pretty soon this will be as accessible as the internet itself.
But will using A.I. to make us draft lists, brainstorm and help us write better really going to make us more productive? Thatās a big ask. Notion AI is being promoted as a partner to enhance oneās productivity. āIt augments your thinking ā helping you save time or spend it more wisely,ā the description on the official website reads.
I donāt think ChatGPT is going to become my copilot in the way I work, nor Microsoftās software or another A.I. writing tools, but will I dabble in them, sure if the bar to entry is rather low.
The Verge asked Notion A.I. for pros and cons of running a marathon:
These arenāt incentives or costs I would have easily came up with though it seems intuitive.
According to the company, Notion AI can be a teammate that will let users focus on impactful work while it handles the daily essentials. I just have to wonder with the hundreds of tools I come across each day, how many (non-human) teammates do I really need on the web to be even more productive? It just feels like overkill.
I think something like Notion A.I. could attract more users to Notion, rather than give current Notion users a real upgrade, but thatās just me. What do you think?
For $0.002 for about 750 words of output, any company can resell ChatGPT in their own app. Why would I actually have to pay for these things?
I used to use Notion for a short while but disliked the rather dull interface and the fact that it deleted tasks when complete rather than letting me see them ticked off. This may no longer be the case. I'm 'using' (putting tasks into but still ignoring them) Asana now and like it better but this new functionality would make me consider Notion of it, although as you say, not enough to warrant paying for it. I like the sound of the streamlining, as I get easily bogged down in stuff, and helping to structure writing (I love a tangent!š), but I find this whole notion (š) of using AI to write a bit discombobulating. A technical blog post for business perhaps, but I think the kind of writing I do, which is really an attempt to connect over our shared humanity, is reliant on it having my tone of voice and ulitmately, humanity.š¤·š¾āāļø I've not tried using ChatGPT yet (I'm a notoriously late adopter of most popular things, but my 14yo just told me he asked it to write a book about cheese, but it crashed!