How Notion Cofounder Simon Last Builds AI for Millions of Users

TL;DR: Today we’re releasing a new episode of our podcast AI & I. I go in depth with Simon Last, the cofounder of Notion. We get into the practical engineering challenges of building a reliable AI product at scale, how he would rebuild Notion in the age of AI, and his thoughts on the evolving role of humans as AI grows more powerful. Watch on X or YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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Notion cofounder Simon Last told me everything he’s learned from integrating an AI application into a platform that has over 100 million users.

Simon likes to keep a low profile, even though he’s the driving force behind Notion AI, one of the most widely scaled AI applications in the world.

In this episode, we get into how AI changes the way he builds software since the days he cofounded Notion with Ivan Zhao in 2013. He talks about the challenges that arise because AI doesn’t follow the deterministic rules of traditional software, and how he designs evals to build AI systems that are reliable at scale. Simon tells me about the AI tools he uses to code and how he would think about rebuilding Notion from scratch with them. He also shares his thoughts on how the growing capabilities of AI are redefining human roles, and argues that we have the responsibility to shape technology to align with our collective vision of the future. Here’s a link to the episode transcript.

This is a must-watch for anyone interested in building reliable AI products at scale.

Watch on X or YouTube, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. 

Go deeper with Simon

Every paid subscribers can read the top takeaways from this episode, such as:

• How AI is changing the way we build software, including having the right primitives and data architecture in place 
• An inside look at how Notion designs robust evals to build AI that’s reliable at scale
• How Simon would rebuild Notion in the age of AI
• Simon’s take on AGI, AI agents, and the evolving role of humans as LLMs grow more powerful

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