this was not on my bingo card when I
woke up yesterday morning but there is
now ai inside of our notion workspaces
yesterday notion announced the launch of
notion AI which is a currently Alpha
program that adds text generation and
other AI magic into your notion
workspace and in this video I'm going to
give you 10 examples of what it can do
from translating text to other languages
to outlining blog posts writing pros and
cons lists to even writing working
programming code based on a text prompt
that you give it but let's just jump
right in to what this can do I'll give
you more details about the wait list and
the costs and privacy things later on
but I want to show you exactly what I
can do so here I've got a page in my
notion workspace called AI playground
and now that I have the AI assist
features on for my account I now have a
few different AI archetypes on this new
page here and I can even click more and
see other archetypes that I can use to
basically like I guess set the mode of
the AI for the prompt that I'm going to
write so the first example I'm going to
give you here is out outlining a blog
post and right now my team is actually
working on a bit of a GTD getting things
done tutorial for the main channel so
let's type in uh what is GTD and how can
I use it and let's see just how good of
a blog post outline AI can give us here
so what is GTD how can I use it there's
our H1 GTD or getting things done as a
popular productivity method that helps
you organize your tasks and get them
done more efficiently created by David
Allen that is correct and let's see if
it gets the steps correct so we have the
collect step we have the process step we
have organize it does seem to have
created a pretty decent outline for blog
posts so pretty interesting example the
next one I want to show you is how it
can generate lists and while I'm getting
that ready I do want to mention that if
you are new to this channel this is a
completely notion focused channel so if
you are new to notion or you want to get
deeper into it and learn how to become a
power user definitely subscribe I've got
database tutorials I've got formula
documentation so make sure you're
subscribed if you aren't okay so I'm
going to come down to one of these other
archetypes and let's use to-do list here
but I'm actually not going to give it a
to-do list prompt I want to give it just
a different prompt so let's let's see
what happens if I tell it to give me a
list of games so give me a list of the
10 best uh Super Nintendo games
and if Super Mario Brothers 3 is not on
there then that'll be correct because
that's an NES game of all time and let's
see what it gives us here
all right we got Super Mario World we
got Legend of Zelda Link to the Past we
got super metroid Chrono Trigger and
this was interesting to me because as
somebody who likes to make listicle
videos or likes to just be you know very
comprehensive with topics that I'm
covering my immediate thought with this
list generation tool here is can I use
this to basically generate lists of
things that I might not know about
regarding a topic okay on to example
number three I want to show you how the
AI can actually generate comparison
tables so let's create a page for that
call it a table and we could do this
pros and cons list but I found that
normally this just creates like a bullet
list of things so I'm going to do an
empty page and then I'm going to do
slash help me write and this you will
notice is a change to the block menu if
I scroll down I have all the blocks that
I normally have but at the top I have
all my AI assist options and I can go to
more for all these archetypes as well um
so we're going to help me write and then
I'm going to do a comparison table so
I'm going to tell it to create a table
actually
comparing let's do mountain bikes road
bikes and I want to see if I can get an
additional column out of it so let's do
unicycles as well
clearly the best option
if you were a clown
uh okay so yeah we got suspension no one
road no one unicycle that is correct I
wonder if there's like unicycles with
suspension and if people who do like
downhill off-road unicycling
[Music]
uh so yeah you can actually generate a
table with the AI and I wonder what
happens if we try again if we're going
to get more detail here let's see
that time actually didn't even create a
table so it does look like this is not
an exact science oh here we go the third
time I tried it I did get more detail I
think I got fewer rows but more detail
per row and that's actually lead me to
the fourth example I want to go through
in this video because there is a
continue writing option which can add
even more detail here so the first
little I guess sub example of that
feature is I'll just see what happens if
I hit continue writing for this table
here
and it looks like yeah I've got a new
sentence about this table here and it
looks like it adds a bit more detail
than was in the table earlier okay so
let's go into our fifth example here
where we are going to fix some poor
grammar and spelling and I'm going to
need an example of poor grammar and
spelling so let's create a brand new
page for that
and actually I like that better let's
leave that there and let's say I've had
one too many before I filmed videos this
morning so I type a sentence like this
all right we're keeping the ER here I is
the best speller in the world so now if
I highlight this and I'll show you two
tricks here if I highlight it I now have
this AI assist little context menu now
we've got a few different options in
here fixed billing and grammar summarize
and translate I'll show you these in a
few minutes but also I can access the
aiss menu from the Block menu here and I
can do the exact same thing so let's see
what happens if I fix spelling and
grammar for this sentence
I'm the best speller in this world and
I'm also very good at Grammar with an AR
so that's pretty good and we have a few
different options here we can try again
if we don't like this but we can also
replace the badly spelled sentence or we
can insert it beneath which will keep
our original and sometimes you might
actually want to do that okay example
number six is going to be translations
and we're going to do something here
called translation round tripping so
I'll create a page let's call it that
and essentially we're going to have the
AI translate a sentence into multiple
different languages and then from the
final we'll go back to English I'm going
to do it this way because I personally
do not speak anything other than English
and I guess kind of JavaScript at this
point and I want to see just how good it
is at translating a sentence into
multiple languages and then back to
English so give me a second I'll type a
sentence here
all right so now I have a sentence here
if I highlight it just like before I can
go to our little AI assist menu and now
I can translate it to any of these
languages so let's first go to Japanese
and see what it gives us here like I
said before I cannot read any of this uh
for a while back like 10 years ago I
actually was able to read um Katakana
and hiragana but all this kanji can't
read it at all so let's go with insert
so we keep our original sentence and now
let's send this to uh let's do Spanish
and we'll do maybe five languages total
or maybe four and then English will be
the last one so we'll insert there and
then let's round trip that one or I
guess translate that one to German just
picking these at random here let me know
if you speak Japanese or what was this
one Spanish or German if these are
correct but the one I am very interested
in now is what happens when we basically
send this back to English so my name is
Thomas Frank and I like weightlifting
and programming computers I have special
skills that make me the worst nightmare
of all clowns in the world so yeah I
mean it's not the exact same phrasing
but it's got all the same meaning and
pretty much nothing is Lost in
Translation which is extremely
impressive so I'll go ahead and insert
that and let's move on to our next
example which is going to be the one I'm
super excited about writing programming
code so let's call this one programming
code
and something that I'm working on right
now is getting information from a
service called poke API which you can
find over at pokeapi.com and I'm using
this as the basis for a notion API
tutorial which we are actually editing
right now be out next week so I want to
see can ocean AI write code that will
pull information about a Pokemon and can
we actually run that code so I have an
instance of a glitch project this is
basically an online programming
environment where you can write code and
then actually run it so I'm gonna delete
everything that's here and we are going
to write a prompt inside of notion and
see just what we can get so I know that
I want to make a call to the Pokemon API
I want to get information about let's
say five different Pokemon and then I
want it to Output the name the weight
and the height of that Pokemon in the
terminal so let's do help me write and I
know this works because I've tested it
before but we're going to go through the
prompt writing process together so you
can see how I'm actually thinking
thinking through things so one thing
that I will mention up front is you have
to be a little bit specific with what
you want it to do because if you're very
vague it may not give you a code that's
actually going to work so for example if
I write give me JavaScript code
that gets information about Charizard
in my experience this is too broad and I
might actually get something here but
this is like literally just getting
information about Charizard which means
that the AI models data set actually has
information about Pokemon but this isn't
what I want I want an actual JavaScript
code that is going to be able to make
this API call so once again help me
write is what I'm going to use here and
let's get a bit more specific here in
JavaScript first thing I'm going to do
is actually require an API calling
library and I'm going to use axios so
let's just say Define a constant axios
and set its value to require axios and I
found that this is the only bit of like
actual kind of coding I have to do the
rest of it I can literally type out in
plain English so the next thing I want
to do is create a function and because
we're using axios I do know it has to be
asynchronous don't worry if you don't
know anything about that I'm just going
to say create an asynchronous function
and then inside it create a for Loop I
basically want to create a loop that
will call the Poke API five times so I
can get information about the first five
Pokemon so I'm going to say create a for
Loop uh with an initial value of one and
a max value of five inside that Loop use
axios to call the Poke API and get
information about the Pokemon
whose number corresponds to the value of
I so what this should do is basically
call the Poke API for whatever the
current number in the loop is which is
pretty sweet and then finally we'll say
console.log that Pokemon's species dot
name value its height and its weight run
the function and I want this to be
outputted in a code block so it's
formatted correctly and so I can easily
copy and paste it into glitch so this is
a really useful trick here I can
actually say start with and then in
quotes I'll do three back ticks and end
with same thing quotes three back ticks
I'm gonna copy this to my clipboard just
in case I lose it but let's go ahead and
generate and see what it gives us
and look at that so I'm not going to go
through what this code does but I'm
looking at it right now and I'm fairly
certain that it is going to work so
let's go ahead and copy it and we'll go
back over to glitch and we're going to
paste it in our little area here and now
I'm going to open the terminal and let's
do a full page terminal actually so I'll
clear this and if I run node index.js
it's basically going to run the code
that we have on this page here and if it
is correctly written we should get
information about the first five Pokemon
so let's see what happened
and there it is Bulbasaur height 7
weight 69 Ivysaur height 10 weight 130.
this is amazing I mean I could literally
in plain English tell it what I want and
as long as I have a decent understanding
of the structure of the code it's going
to create the actual code with the
correct Syntax for me uh and that is
going to bring me on to I believe
example number eight which is the most
finicky one but it does work sometimes
and that's solving math equations so
we'll create us a page for math
equations and if you give it a very
simple math equation it's going to do
just fine so value two plus five times
eight this is fairly simple so let's do
what is this should work let's just see
for a second two plus five times eight
is 42. so that's correct but I have
found in my testing that if you give it
more complex problems it doesn't always
know the answer and it won't tell you
that it doesn't know the answer it'll
just very confidently output like the
wrong answers so I guess right now the
AI model is a proud member of these
subreddits confidently Incorrect and let
me give you an example that so let's do
help me write and I'm going to do uh
what is the let's do surface area of a
sphere with radius and let's do a radius
of 20.
and we'll generate this and then we're
going to check it against Wolfram Alpha
here so surface area of a sphere with
radius 20 is
1256 square units so let's go over to
Wolfram Alpha and type in the exact same
prompt let me zoom in a little bit here
first so you can see what I'm doing and
then we'll type in surface area
all right and Wolfram Alpha is never
wrong so our result is
5026.55 or 1600 times pi which is not
1256. now one thing that Notions CTO
actually told me is that the prompt
engine can often be more accurate if you
tell it let's think in steps so let's
see what happens if I tell it let's
think in steps
it may not be correct on this run but it
should actually give me the steps that
it's going to be using here we go okay
plugging the values we get
um we got the actual answer here so it
does seem that if you tell it to think
in steps you are going to get a more
accurate answer and you can go even
further than that so let's do it one
more time I'm going to do surface area
of a sphere with radius 20. let's do
what is because this is jeopardy today
I'll do let's think in steps and format
the answer as a list so this is an
example of additional information you
can provide to the prompt to get it to
Output the way you want and we should
get yep there it is bullet list answers
which are much easier to read though
once again
we got this answer that doesn't really
match up to the answer we're getting
here and I'm not quite sure if this is a
correct answer that is just expressed in
a different way I'll do it try again
here just to see or if it is actually
wrong but I guess my conclusion here is
sometimes you are going to get the right
answer the more complex the problem the
less reliable the answer is going to be
okay let's go into our next example
which will be summarizing long bits of
text and I'm going to pull some text
from one of my blog posts and let's just
copy this entire how memory Works
subsection of the article here so I'm
going to bring this into notion call
this memory
and at the bottom of this we can type
slash summarize
and we should get a summary of the
entire article right here so we have
brain has three types of memory
processes sensory working memory long
term
and yeah it's got a pretty decent three
to four sentence summary of the entire
article but what's even cooler what's
even cooler is we can summarize specific
sections of our text as well so right
now we've got a summary of the entire
article what if I just want a summary of
long-term memory well I can select that
text and in this AI assist area I can
summarize just this selection and I can
get a summary specifically on long-term
memory so I'll go ahead and insert right
there that's my summary
and that my friends is really cool and
that is actually going to bring us over
to our final example which is on my list
here and that's going to be getting
answers to questions that you have
directly inside a notion
um so this is kind of like a more of a
maybe a novelty example but let's just
call this one um I don't know oracle and
we can now use the AI assistant to get
information that we don't really have
right now so for example what if I write
something like uh who won the 2018 US
Open uh men's division and this should
be Novak so let's see if it gets it
right
oh and it actually gives us quite a bit
more information than I was expecting
but this is another good example of what
you can do with these AI generation
tools if you are you know in your
workflow you're writing stuff and you're
like I don't know the answer to this
question you could always go over to
Google you could search it up but it
looks like you could also get pretty
decent information directly from notion
Ai and that means you can stay in the
same context you can stay in notion you
can keep doing your writing workflow and
if you need to you can go verify
information later but this is a great
way to pull information in on the Fly
again without leaving notion let's go
through a few of the different FAQs and
questions you might have about notion AI
so right now again this is an alpha so
there is a wait list apparently the
waitlist is pretty long right now but if
you want to get access to it I would
recommend getting on that wait list
sooner rather than later and at the
bottom of this page which I will have
Linked In the description down below
there is an FAQ so a few of the
questions that I had number one is it's
going to cost money right now they say
that it is free in Alpha but it's likely
going to cost extra in the future that
is not surprising to me given that I
believe they are using open ai's gpt3
and that is not an open source machine
learning algorithm and it costs money
for them to use the API so definitely
makes sense but hopefully it's going to
be something that's not too expensive or
maybe it's even rolled into paid plans
and you just get like a certain amount
of credits that would be pretty cool the
other one I was specifically curious
about myself is how is data going to be
used so I'll break that down really
quickly I actually talked to them
directly about this first and foremost
you actually have to opt in to use AI in
the first place I'll show you that
really quick if I go over to notion say
you get access to the feature you would
actually have to go to your settings and
members here and then in the upgrade or
plans area there is currently this
add-on for notion AI so you actually
have to turn it on manually if you want
it to work in your workspace and even
once you do they do state that they
don't allow third parties or Partners to
use data for training their models for
any other purpose and also they will not
use your data to train their own models
unless you give them express permission
to do so I was specifically looking for
that when I got access to this feature
so I'm very glad to see it and there are
program terms again you can check this
page out in the description down below
if you are curious about any of the
other FAQs here so that is about gonna
do it for this little First Look video
hopefully you found this interesting let
me know in the comments below or over on
Twitter at tomfrankly if you have any
other questions about this or notion in
general and if you want to learn notion
if you are an ocean beginner or you're
looking to level up your skills become
an ocean power user definitely go over
to Thomas jfrank.com
fundamentals that's where you're going
to find my completely open free and uh
comprehensive notion beginners course
that will take you from the complete
basics of you know making new pages and
writing text to more advanced things
like page layout and linking pages and
even notion databases the notion
databases lesson in particular is
extremely comprehensive goes through
filters and relations and templates and
formulas all kinds of good stuff and if
you want to go even further at
notionformulaguide.com I have complete
documentation took me four months of my
life this year to write this up a
complete documentation on every aspect
of notion formulas literally every
function operator and constant has a
page with their syntax and example
formulas and even an example database
where you can see all the formulas
working uh in action and if you want to
make sure you never miss anything that I
publish about notion any of these kind
of cool guides or new templates I'm
creating you can go over to my website
Thomas jfrank.com and in the learn
notion area up here in the header
there's a newsletter link and you can
get on my notion tips newsletter to get
infrequent updates about new templates
that I'm working on new tutorial
releases and lots of other cool stuff so
join that if you like thanks again for
watching make sure you follow me on
Twitter at tomfrankly if you want to
interact with me there and I'll see you
in the next video
foreign