Building Notion AI: Lessons Learned and Myths Busted with Simon Last, Notion Co-Founder and CTO

In this podcast, Simon Last, co-founder of Notion, shares insights about Notion AI. He discusses how the features have evolved, including the writing assistant, autofill, Q&A, and connectors. Simon explains the organizational journey behind Notion AI, starting with a small tiger team and growing into a larger, more centralized group that values democratization. He also addresses the challenges of assessing AI features, highlighting the importance of thorough logging and deterministic evaluations. Instead of extensive model fine-tuning, the team opted for in-context learning and utilizing the best available models. Simon emphasizes the need for clearly defined tasks and prompts to enhance AI performance. Looking ahead, he envisions Notion AI as a tool that streamlines tedious knowledge work, allowing users to concentrate on more strategic thinking.