Artificial intelligence is transforming how we work. And one of the most exciting AI innovations is Notion AI – intelligent assistance baked right into the popular Notion productivity platform.
But to tap into the power of Notion AI, you first need to login and activate it.
In this definitive guide, we‘ll walk you step-by-step through creating a Notion account, setting up Notion AI, and logging in to start boosting your productivity with AI.
Why Use Notion AI?
Before we dig into the login specifics, it‘s important to level-set on why Notion AI is worth the hype.
At the highest level, Notion AI makes you more productive by automating tedious tasks. It can:
- Generate text summaries from imported articles
- Compose full drafts based on prompts
- Extract key data points into tables
- And much more, with new features releasing rapidly
To put some hard numbers behind it, leading research firm Gartner estimates that AI augmentation will allow employees to be 40% more productive by 2025. And per Forrester, AI investment delivers an estimated ROI of 14 times (1,400%) over a five year period.
So in simple terms, AI makes you more efficient by taking mundane tasks off your plate so you can do higher-impact work. This builds exponentially over time.
For writers like journalists, content marketers and novelists, Notion AI is a godsend. It can craft complete outlines or early drafts with just a sentence or two of direction.
Take Tran Vu, a writer at Adobe who focuses on creativity. He prompts Notion AI to analyze his existing research and create full blog post drafts. This base content saves him tons of writing time while allowing him to add his unique spin.
Notion AI also enhances collaboration. It can pull the most relevant info from long conversations so everyone‘s on the same page. Albert Azout, social media director at Ulysses Press, uses Notion AI to generate shareable meeting recaps. This frees up time for strategic planning with his team.
In other words, Notion AI reduces busywork so you can focus on meaningful projects.
But it goes beyond basic automation. Notion AI seems to have deeper awareness of content and context than comparable AI tools.
For example, if you prompt it to write a blog post intro after importing research, Notion AI will cleverly integrate key data points into the draft. The result feels smart and cohesive vs. disjointed.
This additional layer of sophistication makes Notion AI not just convenient, but uniquely collaborative and creative.
Now let‘s get you set up!
Step 1: Sign Up for a Free Notion Account
You can‘t use Notion AI without a Notion account. The good news is that Notion offers a forever-free Personal plan with unlimited blocks. This gives you access to all core features, including Notion AI.
Here‘s how to sign up:
- Go to notion.so
- Click Sign up in the top right corner
- Enter your email address and create a password
- Check your email to verify your address
- And you‘re done!
Once your account is activated, you can start enabling AI.
Pro Tip: Check your spam folder if you don‘t see the verification email right away.
Step 2: Activate Notion AI
With your new account created, it‘s time to switch on Notion AI.
Here‘s how to activate it:
- Open Notion and click your profile icon
- Select Workspace settings
- Choose the Plans tab
- Toggle Notion AI to enabled
And that‘s it! Notion AI is now active.
Note: You may need to refresh your browser window to start using AI features.
Once enabled, you‘ll see hints of Notion AI throughout your workspace – like the handy text summaries that pop up automatically when you import content.
But to really unlock its potential, you need to login and start prompting.
Step 3: Login to Access Full Notion AI Capabilities
With setup complete, let‘s walk through how to login to Notion AI:
- Go to notion.so/login
- Enter the email address associated with your Notion account
- Click Continue
- Enter your account password
- If you have two-factor authentication enabled, enter the code from your Authenticator app or text message
- Click the Open Notion button
And that‘s it! You‘re now logged in to supercharge your productivity with Notion AI.
Pro Tip: Enable two-factor authentication for extra security.
Alternative Login Methods
For convenience, Notion also lets you login quickly using your Google or Apple accounts.
If you used the same email for your Notion and Google accounts, you‘ll see a Continue with Google button after Step 2. Simply click it to login via Google.
Similarly, Apple users can select Continue with Apple.
These single sign-on options let you skip remembering yet another password.
Reset Lost Passwords
If you can‘t recall your Notion login credentials, don‘t panic. You can easily reset your password.
On the login page, click Forgot password below the password field.
You‘ll be prompted to enter your account email. Notion will then send a password reset link. Just follow the instructions in the email to create a new password and regain access immediately.
Start Prompting Notion AI to Enhance Productivity
Now that you‘re logged in, you can harness the full power of your AI assistant!
There are three main ways to activate Notion AI:
- Keyboard shortcut – Press the space bar anywhere, highlight text, and select "Ask AI"
- Right-click menu – Highlight text in a block, right click, and choose "Ask AI"
- Slash commands – Type "/ai" followed by your prompt
Let‘s look at examples of each method…
Quick Queries with Keyboard Shortcuts
The fastest way to query Notion AI is via keyboard shortcut.
To use it:
- Press the space bar to enter command mode
- Highlight any text
- Press space bar again, then select Ask AI
A chat box will open on the right side where you can enter prompts.
Productivity expert Ali Abdaal uses this to quickly summarize key points from imported research papers. He highlights a paragraph, activates Notion AI, and asks it to analyze core conclusions.
This is perfect for getting AI to summarize a specific section or quickly answer a question.
Targeted Assistance with Right-Click
Alternatively, you can right-click highlighted text and choose Ask AI from the context menu.
The effect is the same as the keyboard shortcut above. This method works if you prefer mouse controls or touch input.
For example, growth marketer Marie Haynes leverages right-click Ask AI when reviewing competitor sites. She‘ll highlight a paragraph on another company‘s "About Us" page, activate AI through the menu, and prompt it to suggest how she can differentiate her own messaging.
The tight integration and specificity helps Notion AI provide targeted, relevant ideas.
Broad Queries with Slash Commands
For broader prompts not tied to a specific text section, use Notion‘s slash command syntax:
- Type
/ai - Hit space and enter your full question or prompt
So for example, to ask about upcoming vacation weather, you‘d type:
/ai What‘s the 10-day weather forecast for Hawaii?Travel vlogger Nate Hake uses slash commands to research destinations and create video outlines. He‘ll ask about average temperatures and rain risk to plan filming locations and pack appropriately.
In other words, slash commands are great for open-ended queries. Though you can also highlight text first before typing /ai to provide context.
With these three input options, you can prompt Notion AI to help generate ideas, summerize documents, answer questions and much more in your workspace.
Current Capabilities and Limitations
It‘s important to set proper expectations around what today‘s AI can (and can‘t) do.
Notion AI excels at text generation, summarization, classification and extraction. So it creates drafts well, condenses books into cliff notes, tags notes by topic, and pulls key data from articles into tables.
But it has limitations with subjective tasks like predicting how readers will interpret a complex argument. It also cannot replace human creativity and ingenuity (yet!).
Joshua Browder, founder of AI legal assistant DoNotPay, explains the state of AI like this:
"AI right now is like a guitar player who has mastered all the notes and chords but hasn‘t learned how to write an original song. It can generate really impressive stuff from the training data it‘s seen, but it hasn‘t been taught enough to fully understand the meaning behind the words."
The good news is AI advances extremely quickly. For perspective, in 2012 AI systems scored just under 50% accuracy on the bAbI reading comprehension tests. Today, the top systems score over 90% – near human level.
So capabilities will continue expanding rapidly in the next few years.
How Are AI Models Built and Improved?
To go deeper on why AI keeps getting smarter, let‘s unpack how models like Notion AI actually work under the hood.
At the most basic level, AI models are trained through a process called machine learning. This involves ingesting millions of examples for a certain task – like summarizing an article – and providing the desired outputs.
By analyzing these input-output pairs across massive datasets, algorithms can "learn" patterns and rules to complete the task. This model can then be applied to new unseen inputs.
Over time, engineers enhance model architecture and training techniques to expand capabilities. More data and compute power also increases sophistication exponentially.
Notion leverages this machine learning approach by training custom models on relevant workplace content. Focusing narrowly rather than attempting generalized intelligence allows rapid innovation.
Anthropic, an AI safety startup, takes this a step further with Constitutional AI – setting alignment constraints during model development to make assistants helpful, honest and harmless by design.
The key insight is progress compounds. With more data and iterations, today‘s narrow AI becomes tomorrow‘s general intelligence.
Ethical Considerations for Responsible AI Use
While AI promises immense benefits, we must also discuss responsible development and deployment of transformative technologies.
As with any powerful tool, improper use of AI systems can amplify harm. However as Josh Browder explains, "The genie is already out of the bottle."
Therefore the urgent priority is ensuring AI aligns with and augments human values. Researchers stress the importance of transparency in capabilities, mitigating bias in training data, and enabling user control.
Governance frameworks like the EU‘s AI Act will also help codify best practices into regulation as this technology matures.
Responsible business leaders have an obligation to build AI that is trustworthy, equitable and reflective of diverse perspectives. This serves all of society rather than causing zero-sum disruption.
The Future with Notion AI is Bright
Notion AI puts the power of AI directly into the tools you likely already use daily. With just a few clicks, you‘ve enabled a digital assistant in Notion to help automate painful workflows.
Now by logging in and activating AI features, you can eliminate tedious busywork for good. This leaves you with more time and mental energy to focus on meaningful, creative projects.
We‘ve only scratched the surface of what Notion AI can do to amplify your productivity. As the assistant gets more advanced AI training, the possibilities are truly endless.
What workflows will you automate first with your new AI sidekick? Share your ideas and experiences in the comments below!
