Using Notion AI to extend your impact

Learn about what artificial intelligence is, as well as the current functions and limitations of this technology.

3 min read
In this guide
  • How does artificial intelligence (AI) work?
  • What are the current functions of Notion AI?
  • What are the current limitations of Notion AI?
  • Augmenting human intellect

How does artificial intelligence (AI) work?

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to human-produced technology that systematically applies large sets of data to an iterative model. This allows it to predict results, generating mathematical or linguistic outputs in response to an input by the user of the AI.

  • It finds patterns in a massive set of data, referred to as training data, to create a model

  • It then tests its model by asking a question it already knows the answer to, and analyzing how accurate its answer is. The data generated by the AI is referred to as test data

  • Over time and with more inputs and test data, it learns and iterates on the model

A quick note

Artificial intelligence is an extremely complex science made up of machine learning, neural networks, cognitive computing, and so much more. While we aim to give you practical context behind Notion’s new AI features, this guide is not a comprehensive resource to learn about artificial intelligence.

What are the current functions of Notion AI?

Use Notion AI as a partner in thought to get started, or when you feel stuck on what’s next. Some of the current functions include:

  • Summarize existing content — after you’ve written something, Notion’s AI can extract key points in a high-level summary. Handy for quickly recapping research proposals, product specs, or meeting notes!

  • Brainstorm ideas — sometimes inspiration strikes right when we need it, but when writers’ block gets in the way, you can ask Notion AI to generate a list of names for your startup, or costumes for an upcoming party.

  • Write a rough draft — whether it’s a blog post, instagram caption, email, or poem, Notion’s AI can pull from millions of examples to craft a jumping off point for your writing. Some sentences might be great, others… not so much. That’s where the fun begins: editing and crafting the perfect final draft that is distinctly you.

  • Fix spelling and grammar — Notion AI also has a built-in spell check and grammar correction feature. No more worrying about pesky typos or misplaced comma. Notion AI will take care of it for you!

  • Translate content — easily convert your written content into another language!

What else can I do?

What are the current limitations of Notion AI?

All AI outputs are limited and AI continues to be an area of rapid research and development. Limitations in AI as a whole can be attributed to many different causes, including but not limited to: narrow inputs, systemic biases, limited quantity of training or test data, or poor quality of training or test data.

As a consequence, Notion AI:

  • may output incorrect information.

  • may output harmful content when prompted.

  • may not know about recent events occurring in the last 6-12 months and may output inaccurate or outdated results.

  • may contain bias and output biased responses. Learn more about AI bias →

Artificial intelligence and machine learning models can improve over time to better address specific use cases. Notion AI is the same — the feature will continue to get better in the coming months. Plus, you can always use the 👍 👎 buttons in your Notion workspace anytime you use Notion AI, to flag any inappropriate responses to our engineers.

What about privacy?

Your data is still encrypted and private following our standard data protection practices.

The Notion AI Writing Suite will not use your data to train our models. Any information used to power Notion AI will be shared with our partners for the sole purpose of providing you with the Notion AI features. We do not allow any partners or 3rd parties to use your data for training their models or any other purpose.

For information specific to Notion AI, see the Notion AI Supplementary Terms.

Augmenting human intellect

Notion AI augments, or supplements, your thinking — helping you save time or spend it more wisely. Outputs from Notion AI should not be falsely represented. As such, do not use Notion AI:

  • to mislead any person that output from Notion AI was solely human generated

  • to generate spam or content for dissemination in electoral campaigns

  • to develop foundation models or other large scale models that compete with Notion AI

  • in a manner that violates any applicable laws or technical documentation, usage guidelines, or legal parameters

We hope you leverage Notion AI to augment your problem-solving abilities and get even more out of Notion as a tool!

Want to learn more about using Notion AI at work?

Request a demo from our team.

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