Notion, the app best known for its note-taking software, is introducing a new feature where it will help users write out their daily content be it a blog post, meeting notes, or job descriptions to give some examples. Of course, it will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to help achieve this. The feature is right now part of a private alpha test and users have to sign up for a waitlist. Only if they get approved will they be allowed to use the Notion AI feature. “We’re introducing Notion AI in private alpha, bringing the power of artificial intelligence right into your Notion workspace,” the announcement blog post reads. According to the company, Notion AI is being pitched as “a writing assistant” to help users “write, brainstorm, edit, summarise, and more.” If you think Notion plans to replace all of a user’s writing, then hold on. Right now, Notion AI is being pitched as a partner, designed to help users “save time or spend it more wisely.” Its writing might not always be good enough to get published as is, but the idea here is to help and assist users rather than take over. The Verge points out that right now users can give requests to the AI to create the kind of content they might need, and this could range from a blog post to a recruitment email. The app then creates this content for them. The company has listed examples of where Notion AI will help. It could help users write out their first draft about a topic and turn some ideas into a note. It will also help with giving a list of ideas about anything, according to the blog post. Of course, the feature will also act as an editor — whether it is for “spelling, grammar, or even translation.” The blog post, “Notion AI catches mistakes or translates whole posts to help ensure writing is accurate and actionable.” Finally, it can also be used to summarize a long meeting or document with the AI pulling out the most important points and action items. The Notion AI announcement is interesting as we see AI being used more and more for ‘creative tasks’ While the use of AI for art has become popular thanks to services such as DALL·E 2 to Midjourney gaining popularity, AI’s usage in writing is still new. It should be noted that Google is already testing how LaMDA, its AI-based chatbot, could help writers with fiction. Google showcased fiction written with the help of LAMDA last month as part of its Wordcraft project. But Google also admitted that LaMDA on its own is not capable of writing fiction, and is still dependent on inputs from human writers. LaMDA is still a tool, one meant to help writers, not take over. Well, at least for now.
