How to Use Notion AI for Beginners: Complete 2026 Guide
How to Use Notion AI for Beginners: Complete 2026 Guide
If you’ve been staring at a blank Notion page wondering how to actually get Notion AI to do something useful, you’re in the right place. This guide walks you through every major Notion AI feature — writing, summarizing, brainstorming, answering questions from your workspace, and populating databases automatically — with practical examples you can try right now.
Whether you just signed up for Notion or you’ve been using it for years without touching the AI features, this guide is written for you. Notion AI is just one option — see how it stacks up in our guide to the best AI productivity tools in 2026.
Prerequisites — What You Need Before Starting
Before you dive in:
- A Notion account — free at notion.com. Note that the free plan now only gives you 20 total AI responses as a trial, after which you’ll need to upgrade.
- Full Notion AI access requires the Business plan ($20/user/month billed annually). The Plus plan ($10/user/month) also only includes the same 20-response trial.
- A workspace with at least a few pages already created — Notion AI works better when there’s content to work with.
- A desktop browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Safari) or the Notion desktop app. Mobile works too, but the desktop experience is smoother for AI features.
That’s it. You don’t need to configure anything special or connect external accounts to get started.
Step 1: Getting Started — Finding Notion AI in Your Workspace
Notion AI is built directly into the editor, so there’s nothing to install. There are three main ways to trigger it: Exploring options beyond Notion? Check our list of the best Notion AI alternatives.
Method 1: The Space bar trick (for new content)
Open any Notion page, click to place your cursor on an empty line, then press the Space bar. A small AI prompt box appears. Type your request — for example, “Write an introduction paragraph for a project kickoff meeting agenda” — and hit Enter.
Method 2: Highlight and Ask AI (for existing content)
Select any text on a page by clicking and dragging over it. A floating toolbar appears. Click Ask AI to see a dropdown menu with options like Summarize, Fix grammar, Make shorter, Make longer, Change tone, Translate, and Explain this. You can also type a custom instruction.
Method 3: The slash command
On any line in a Notion page, type /AI to bring up AI block options — things like “Summarize this page,” “Find action items,” or “Generate from template.” This is the fastest way to run AI on an entire page rather than a single selection.
Method 4: The AI sidebar
Click the circular icon in the bottom-right corner of any page, or press Shift + Cmd + J (Mac) or Shift + Ctrl + J (Windows) to open the Notion AI sidebar. This lets you have a back-and-forth conversation with the AI while keeping your page visible.
Pro tip: The sidebar is the most flexible option because you can ask follow-up questions, ask the AI to refine its output, or ask it questions about your entire workspace — all without leaving the page you’re working on.
Step 2: Using Notion AI to Write Content
The most common use case is generating new text. Here’s how to do it well.
Generate a first draft from scratch
For more tips on writing effective prompts, see our prompt engineering for beginners guide.
Example prompt: “Write a one-page project brief for a website redesign project. Include sections for project goals, target audience, timeline, and success metrics. Use a professional but approachable tone.”
Notion AI will generate the draft inline. Once it appears, you’ll see options at the bottom: Keep, Try again, Discard, and Make longer/shorter. Click Keep to accept it, or Try again if the output missed the mark.
Improve text you’ve already written
This is where Notion AI really earns its keep. You write a rough draft — grammar mistakes, awkward sentences, and all — then let AI clean it up.
Other useful editing options:
- Make shorter — Great for trimming lengthy emails or proposals down to what matters.
- Make longer — Useful when you have bullet points you want expanded into full paragraphs.
- Change tone — Switch between Professional, Casual, Confident, Friendly, and Straightforward.
- Translate — Notion AI can translate text into Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and several other languages directly inline.
Continue writing where you left off
If you’ve written the first few paragraphs of something and hit a wall, place your cursor at the end of what you have, press Space, and simply type: “Continue this from where I left off.” Notion AI reads the context above and keeps going in the same voice and style.
Step 3: Summarizing Notes and Documents
Summarization is one of the most practical Notion AI features, especially if you use Notion for meeting notes, research notes, or any long-form documentation.
Summarize a page in seconds
/AI on a blank line anywhere on the page.Notion AI scans the entire page and writes a concise summary below. You can then edit this summary, move it to the top of the page, or copy it into a different document.
Summarize selected text
This is perfect for extracting the key points from one section of a larger document without processing the whole thing.
Extract action items from meeting notes
This is one of the most time-saving features. After a meeting, paste or type your raw notes into Notion. Then:
Notion AI will pull out every task, decision, and follow-up item and present them as a clean list. No more re-reading messy notes trying to remember who was supposed to do what.
Practical example: A product manager pastes in 800 words of meeting notes from a sprint planning call. After running “Find action items,” Notion AI returns a clean list of 7 specific tasks with the responsible person noted for each.
Pro tip: Add a line at the top of your meeting notes template that says “AI: Find action items at the end of this page.” When you run the AI on a completed set of notes, it will know exactly what to do.
Step 4: Brainstorming Ideas
Notion AI is a solid brainstorming partner when you give it enough context to work with.
Start a brainstorm session
Example prompts that work well:
- “Brainstorm 10 blog post topics about remote team management for a company that sells project management software to mid-size businesses.”
- “Give me 5 different angles I could take for this product announcement email” (followed by pasting your draft).
- “What are some objections a customer might raise about this pricing page?” (paste your pricing content first).
The key is specificity. “Brainstorm content ideas” produces generic results. “Brainstorm 8 LinkedIn post ideas for a freelance UX designer trying to attract fintech clients” produces ideas you can actually use.
Expand on a single idea
Once you have a bullet point or a rough idea written down, highlight it and use Ask AI → Make longer to expand it into a full paragraph. This is especially useful for turning a bulleted outline into a full document structure.
Generate multiple variations
If you need options — three different subject line ideas for an email, four ways to phrase a value proposition — just ask:
“Give me 5 alternative ways to write this sentence: [paste your sentence]”
Notion AI will return a numbered list of variations. Pick the one that fits, or blend elements from a few.
Step 5: Using Notion AI Q&A to Search Your Workspace
The Q&A feature is where Notion AI becomes genuinely different from other AI tools. Instead of just knowing general information, it can answer questions using the specific content inside your Notion workspace.
How to access Notion AI Q&A
What you can ask
You’re essentially chatting with an AI that has read everything in your Notion workspace. Some useful examples:
- “What is our refund policy?” — If your company has this documented in Notion, the AI will find it and quote it back to you.
- “Summarize the key decisions made in the last three product meetings.”
- “What tasks are assigned to Sarah in the current sprint?”
- “What are the onboarding steps for new hires?”
- “What did we decide about the marketing budget for Q2?”
What to know about accuracy
Notion AI Q&A works best when your workspace is well-organized with clearly named pages and consistent formatting. If your notes are messy or scattered across many nested pages, the AI may miss relevant information or combine details from the wrong sources. Always double-check factual answers against the source pages, especially for anything important like numbers or deadlines.
Pro tip: When asking about specific documents, mention them by name: “According to the Product Roadmap 2026 page, what are our top three priorities?” This helps the AI find the right source faster.
Step 6: AI Database Features — Autofill Properties at Scale
This is the Notion AI feature most people overlook, and it’s incredibly powerful for anyone who manages large databases — content calendars, CRM data, project trackers, research libraries.
Add an AI Summary column to any database
Once added, this column automatically generates a one-sentence or one-paragraph summary for every row in your database. If you have a database of 50 blog posts, you get 50 summaries generated automatically without touching each one.
Create custom AI autofill properties
Beyond summaries, you can create properties that extract specific types of information:
- AI Keywords — Automatically tags each database entry with relevant keywords.
- AI Translation — Automatically translates a text field into another language.
- Custom AI autofill — You define the instruction. For example: “Extract the client name and project type from this page and return them in the format: [Client] | [Project Type].”
Practical use case: A content team uses a Notion database to track all their published articles. They add an AI Summary column and an AI Keywords column. Now every new article automatically gets a summary and keyword tags the moment the page is created — no manual tagging needed.
Analyze uploaded files with AI
You can upload a CSV file into Notion and then ask the AI to analyze it. This is useful for quick data exploration without needing a spreadsheet app:
Tips and Tricks
Use the AI sidebar for multi-turn conversations. The sidebar remembers context from earlier in your conversation, so you can say “Make that more casual” or “Add a third point” without repeating yourself.
Write with constraints for better output. “Write a product update email” is vague. “Write a product update email in under 150 words for a SaaS audience, focusing on our new dashboard feature” produces something much closer to what you actually want.
Combine AI with Notion templates. Create a page template that already has AI block instructions embedded. For example, a meeting notes template that automatically runs “Find action items” when you fill it in.
Use translate for quick localization. If you manage multilingual documentation, highlight text and use Ask AI → Translate rather than switching to a separate translation tool. It stays in your workflow.
Let AI draft, then edit yourself. The best results come from treating AI output as a strong first draft rather than a finished product. Add your own voice, correct anything that’s off, and fill in specific details the AI couldn’t know.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
1. Using prompts that are too vague
“Help me write something about marketing” will give you a generic, unusable result. Always include the format you want, the audience, the purpose, and any constraints like word count or tone.
2. Accepting AI output without reviewing it
Notion AI can hallucinate or produce confident-sounding text that’s factually wrong, especially for anything involving numbers, dates, or specific claims. Always read AI-generated content before publishing or sharing it.
3. Expecting Q&A to work on an unorganized workspace
If your Notion pages have titles like “Untitled” or your information is buried in chaotic nested pages, the Q&A feature will struggle. Spend time organizing your workspace and you’ll get dramatically better results from Q&A.
4. Not iterating
If the first output isn’t quite right, don’t just give up or start over. Use “Try again” or click into the AI sidebar and say “That was good but make it more specific to our industry.” AI works best as a back-and-forth conversation, not a one-shot command.
5. Using AI for everything
Notion AI is a time-saver for first drafts, summarization, and repetitive tasks — not a replacement for your judgment. Use it to handle the mechanical parts of writing so you can focus on the thinking that actually requires your expertise.
Pricing — How Much Does Notion AI Cost?
Here’s where things changed significantly in May 2025:
| Plan | Monthly Price (Annual) | Notion AI Access |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 20 trial responses total, then stops |
| Plus | $10/user/month | 20 trial responses total, then stops |
| Business | $20/user/month | Full, unlimited Notion AI |
| Enterprise | Custom | Full Notion AI + advanced security |
The key change from 2024: Notion no longer offers AI as a separate $8–10/month add-on. Full AI access now requires the Business plan or higher. If you’re on Free or Plus, you get a small taste of the features — 20 total responses — before you need to upgrade.
For individuals or small teams, the Business plan at $20/user/month gives you access to AI powered by GPT-4.1 and Claude 3.7 Sonnet. For teams doing research, content creation, or knowledge management, it’s often worth the cost.
FAQ
Does Notion AI work offline?
No, Notion AI requires an internet connection. All AI processing happens on Notion’s servers, not on your device.
Can Notion AI access information from outside my workspace?
Yes, in some cases. Notion AI can search the web to supplement your workspace knowledge, but this depends on the type of query and your plan. Workspace-specific Q&A primarily uses your own content.
Will Notion use my data to train AI models?
No, by default. Notion has stated it will not use your data to train AI models unless you explicitly opt in. They have contractual agreements with their AI subprocessors (including Anthropic and OpenAI) to prevent this.
How is Notion AI different from ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a standalone AI tool with no connection to your documents. Notion AI lives inside your workspace and can read, reference, and work with your actual Notion content. For tasks like summarizing your own meeting notes or answering questions about your company’s documentation, Notion AI has a major advantage.
Can I use Notion AI on mobile?
Yes. The Notion mobile apps for iOS and Android support AI features. The experience is slightly more limited than desktop — some features are easier to access via keyboard shortcuts that don’t exist on mobile — but the core functionality works.
What to Try Next
Once you’re comfortable with the basics, here are a few directions to explore:
- Notion AI Agents — Notion’s newest feature (introduced in late 2025) lets you set up AI agents that can complete multi-step tasks autonomously, like pulling information from connected apps and writing a weekly report automatically.
- MCP integrations — Notion now supports MCP (Model Context Protocol), letting other AI tools like Perplexity read from and write back to your Notion workspace.
- AI Meeting Notes — If your team uses Notion for meetings, set up AI to transcribe, summarize, and link action items back to the source transcript.
- Compare with other tools — If you’re unsure whether Notion AI fits your workflow, check out our comparison of Notion AI vs ChatGPT and our roundup of the best AI writing tools for alternatives.
Notion AI works best when you actually use it regularly and learn what prompts work well for your specific workflow. Start with one feature — summarization is the easiest entry point — and build from there.
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