Notion is a strange beast, even for those who use it regularly. The app’s bread and butter may once have been database management and a place to store notes, but as we head into 2026 it’s now grown into something that encompasses so much more.
Last year, I pointed out how you can use a series of tools within the free version of the app to set goals, manage tasks, and build templates. If you want a primer on some of the basic things it can do, I’d recommend reading that first.
But Notion is now able to do so much more, thanks to new tools and, yes, AI. If you’ve spent any time with Notion in the last few years, you may be surprised at what it can help you achieve now.
1. Embracing the Agent
Notion is definitely leaning further into AI than ever before, as you might expect.
While there’s a whole bunch of AI tools, like being able to create charts from data and asking Notion AI to search through your workspace for something you may have referenced months ago, a more recent feature is Notion Agent.
As the name suggests, this is the company’s Agentic AI. Think of it less like having a tool that can find data or analyze what’s there, and more like having a handy extra pair of hands that can enter data, update pages, and much more. You can get a trial of Notion AI in the free and Plus plans, but for full access to the Agent you need the Business plan ($20 / £16.50 per month, around AU$30 per month). That’s what I’m on.
You can ask your Notion Agent to build a database for just about anything, adding as much information as you can, and it’ll build it in seconds while explaining what it can do and the steps you may want to take next – very handy.
Not all of Notion’s AI-powered features need a subscription (for example, Mail and Calendar are free), but understanding what Notion Agent can do could be a huge boon for your organizational outlook in 2026. A good place to start is this video intro to Notion Agent.
2. Managing meetings
One of my favorite features Notion added this year is its Meeting Notes. Real-time transcription is one of the most useful AI tools around, but with Notion you can use a backslash and then ‘meeting’ to get it to listen out for calls.
It’ll also trigger automatically if you want to jump on a quick call and have it take a bunch of notes, with options for a full transcript, summary notes, and an AI summary.
It gets dropped right into your workspace, too, so you can send it to your colleagues or instantly turn it into an action plan, and it’s all searchable with Notion AI, too.
The only downside is that you do need the Business plan ($20 / £16.50 per month, around AU$30 per month), to unlock a limited number of AI Meeting Notes.
3. Organising email
TL;DR What’s new in Notion?
- Notion has a new suite of AI tools, including connections to popular models like ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
- The standalone Calendar app has been joined by Notion Mail for managing your email.
- Its enterprise tools are getting better, too, meaning you can now search on services like Slack for key details.
Last year, Notion added a second app to its staple with Notion Calendar. In the months since, that app has gotten better with each update. It’s clean, easy to parse at a glance, and it finally removed that additional panel with keyboard shortcuts on the side.
It adjusts to time zones, and has a built-in scheduling tool, while it has access to your Notion database so you can update information there without going to a separate app.
New in 2025, though, is Notion Mail. Since it arrived, it’s also become more useful. Using Notion AI, you can filter incoming mail automatically, meaning it can surface documents that need signing, emails with meeting invites, and much more.
With snippet support, suggested responses, and scheduled send, it’s helped me get through my inbox much more quickly.
Another huge improvement that comes with Notion Agent is that it can tie into a whole bunch of non-Notion apps.
That includes dev tools like Jira and Github, storage locations like iCloud Drive and Box, and workspace solutions like Slack, Teams, and more. This means your agent can dive deep into just about anything you give it access to.
Asking it to find articles I’ve written, as well as drafts from my Google Drive that correspond, is more helpful than you’d perhaps expect, letting me see what’s live, what isn’t, and much more.
If you’re already using some kind of AI chatbot, you might be able to integrate it into your Notion, too. At the time of writing, it includes Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.5, Gemini 3 Pro, and ChatGPT 5.1, with the caveat that these are in beta.
5. Building a task manager
This isn’t an AI task (and Notion Agents can’t create automations… yet), but you might be surprised at how much you can get done by building your own.
As an example, when I log a piece of work as having been sent to a client, it automatically marks it as done on my Kanban board. When I add an invoice date, it marks it as invoiced, and so on, and so forth.
When you tie it with other services and tools, you can get pretty complex. My task manager can input tasks using an email trigger, so my Notion can send the relevant data from my email, to that address, which then populates it on my to-do list with a deadline, client name, and more. The only real limits are what you can think of.
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