How Notion Cofounder Simon Last Builds AI for Millions of Users - Ep. 37 with Simon Last

AI & I

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.

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

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Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Simon Last: @simonlast

Notion AI: https://www.notion.so/product/ai

The AI code editor Simon uses: Cursor

OpenAI’s definition of AGI that Simon ascribes to: https://openai.com/charter/