Notion released Notion Mail, an AI-powered email client for Gmail that integrates with the rest of Notion’s workflow management platform, on Tuesday.
Notion Mail connects to Notion users’ Gmail accounts and uses AI to help users organize their emails, draft responses, schedule meetings, and search across messages. Any Notion user can sign up, and Notion Mail’s AI capabilities are free with monthly usage limits or unlimited through a paid tier.
Notion Mail enters an increasingly crowded category of companies looking to improve email inboxes with AI. Superhuman, one of the larger players, has raised $108 million in venture funding for its client that isn’t tied to legacy email providers like Gmail or Microsoft Outlook. Fyxer, which connects to Gmail and Outlook, raised $10 million last month.
It’s also worth noting that many of the features Notion Mail is offering are also available from providers like Gmail, which uses AI to sort emails, craft responses, and suggest meetings.
Jason Ginsberg, an engineer who worked on Notion Mail, told TechCrunch that the idea behind Notion Mail wasn’t to attach AI to an existing inbox, but rather give users the ability to use AI to build a custom inbox organized and configured how they want.
“The way we built Notion Mail is almost down to the building blocks, or the fundamentals of how email works,” Ginsberg said. “It’s really modular. And what that means is, like, instead of just going to settings and there’s just what we’ve decided, you actually can configure Notion Mail in ways we can’t even imagine — all different permutations, so that it actually works the way you prefer.”
Notion Mail’s infrastructure came from Skiff, an end-to-end encrypted collaboration platform Notion acquired in 2024 for an undisclosed sum. Ginsberg co-founded Skiff, which also included an email product.
According to Ginsberg, one of Notion Mail’s more notable features is the ability for users to separate their inbox into “views” or folders. The feature uses Notion AI to auto-label emails on a particular topic and move them into a separate topic-specific inbox.
Ginsberg imagines users will use the capability to organize emails for a specific purpose, like keeping track of job applications. He said he uses the feature himself to quickly check customer feedback from Notion Mail’s beta customers.
Notion Mail connects with other Notion products like the platform’s calendar app, Notion Calendar, and its internal knowledge base. This unlocks time-saving shortcuts. If someone in an email exchange suggests scheduling a meeting, Notion’s AI will check a user’s calendar, suggest times they’re free, and prompt them to schedule it.
Ginsberg said that a lot of the innovation around incorporating AI into email has thus far focused mainly on writing emails. He thinks Notion Mail offers something different because of its emphasis on building a customized inbox.
“I think our focus has really been on, how can AI help organize your email for you?” Ginsberg said. “The big change there is it’s no longer feeling like a burden where you are going through the same never-ending list, one-size-fits-all inbox and manually triaging emails. Our focus is not to have you work faster in the old way of things. It’s really a new way and a new approach.”
Ginsberg said that in the future, Notion hopes to be able to offer more product integrations and additional ways to access Notion Mail, like an iOS app. The Notion team also wants to be able to offer multiple inboxes in one view down the line.
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