And now for an AI copy tool I could consider trusting! I use Notion for note-keeping, journalling and so on. I already trust them with my words – could I trust them to WRITE my words?
My first foray into AI copywriting was with Jasper.ai, which has been around for a good few years. Their raison d’etre is to literally produce copywriting, which, from my experimentation, is not quite where we are with AI yet.
A few green flags from Notion AI: it proposes ‘a first draft’, not a finished piece of copy. The fact that they acknowledge a human edit is usually needed on AI-generated copy pleases me. Jasper does not.
“It can help unblock you to focus on more impactful work. It can save you time with some of writing’s most arduous moments. It can’t do everything, but it can help you be more productive.”
Ivan Zhao, Notion Co-founder & CEO
Interesting features of the Notion AI copy tool
Haiku and poetry
How is this useful? Why should I care? One reason: it shows they’re factoring creativity into their AI. One thing I found disappointing about Jasper was its woodenness. Copywriting has to involve flair, so I’m encouraged by the presence of a playful tool.
However, having seen what the art community thinks of AI art generation, I can’t imagine poets being overly happy. Sometimes tools like this can be great for creativity; sometimes they can kill it. I’ve used tools like random word selectors in the past to form pieces of creative writing, so I can see both sides.
Never-the-less, an AI that’s being raised on creative concepts and then learning from what it spits out is going to be more adept at sounding like a human than one without knowledge of poetry and literature.
Brainstorming and pros and cons lists
I love anything that acts as a prompt for your own creativity. Notion AI claims to be able to brainstorm topics, and generate pros and cons, giving you perspectives on your idea that you hadn’t thought of.
That’s far beyond a copy-generation tool – that’s an ideation tool. Where Jasper currently sits at ‘filler’ copy for me, Notion is promising something with more nuance. And without pretending it will replace writers, which would be at odds with their role as a productivity company that empowers creators.
It does sometimes pay to be a follower, as they’re building fresh after years of Jasper testing the waters.
Integrated AI writing tools
The best thing about this is that it’s all integrated into the Notion platform I already use, rather than requiring me to use another app. I can use commands in my documents to insert each AI tool.
For small businesses, Notion is a great place to store internal knowledge. Documents, training and drafts can all live there to be worked on in the cloud, like an intranet. That makes putting AI to work on your written material extremely easy.
Advanced spellcheck
I don’t know how much better they can be than Grammarly, a copywriter’s usual fave, but Notion claims to have rebuilt spellchecking for the modern age. (It made me laugh that their example was the curiously dated ‘milennium > millennium.’)
Again, I think having this tool in use and giving the AI constant feedback is part of the rich foundation Notion seems to have built. It’s a very holistic view of writing: creativity, accuracy, ideation. That feels like a much richer mix than Jasper’s.
Join the alpha to use Notion AI for free – for now
Notion AI is currently in alpha, so you’ll need to join the hefty waitlist (I’m 38,550th in the queue) to get access. The list is to keep control over the level of content the AI is creating and re-imbibing, to maintain output quality during testing.
Right now, the tool is free because they’ll be wanting our test cases: our cries for help with blog posts, summary paragraphs and ‘should I/shouldn’t I date him’ lists. It’s going to make for an eclectic robot!
Notion does plan to charge for the tool once it’s out of beta, so if you’re interested, get on the waitlist now to experiment. I’m genuinely excited by this one.
