No Priors Ep. 51 | With Notion CEO Ivan Zhao

Notion is a productivity app that has invested heavily in AI to create products that enable workers to access information instantly without having to search through their own countless notes. Today on No Priors, Sarah and Elad are joined by Ivan Zhao, the co-founder and CEO of Notion, to talk about Notions Q&A interface and calendar applications. They also get into how using RAG models means better retrieval, longer memory, and the user can be less organized and how Notion is leading the charge in this era of SaaS bundling products. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @ivanhzhao Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 2:09 AI and Computing literacy 5:39 Building the Notion AI team 8:43 Notion as an application company 12:09 Prioritizing AI investment 14:53 The rapid evolution cycle of AI development 17:46 Notion Q&A 20:00 Workflow and AI for calendars 22:43 Moving past the need for organization 24:36 History of SaaS doesn’t repeat, it rhymes 30:14 Design at Notion 34:26 Notion office design 36:52 How RAG will change the future 38:30 Building our the software in the Notionscape

Sarah GuohostIvan ZhaoguestElad Gilhost

Feb 15, 202442mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Notion CEO Ivan Zhao on AI, bundling, and rethinking knowledge work

Ivan Zhao describes Notion as a flexible workspace built from core “Lego brick” primitives—text editor, databases, permissions, comments—that can power many workflows, from personal notes to enterprise knowledge bases. He explains how large language models and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) are transforming Notion into an AI-first platform, especially by turning all workspace content into a searchable, reasoning “perfect memory.” Zhao argues we’re entering a rebundling phase of software, where unified tools and shared embedding spaces beat fragmented SaaS. He also shares how this shift changes hiring, product design, and even the need for traditional information organization, as AI increasingly handles structure, retrieval, and workflow.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Build primitives, not point solutions.

Notion’s long-term bet was to invest in core building blocks—rich text, relational databases, permissions—rather than narrow apps, which allowed them to plug in AI quickly across many workflows once powerful LLMs arrived.

RAG turns your workspace into a ‘perfect memory.’

By applying embeddings and RAG to everything stored in Notion, users can ask natural-language questions and get precise answers without remembering where information lives, dramatically cutting coordination and search time inside organizations.

Organization becomes less critical as retrieval gets smarter.

Zhao believes we’re moving away from manually structuring folders and taxonomies; users will increasingly just “dump” notes, images, and ideas, relying on AI to impose semantic structure and handle recall.

AI work requires new talent profiles and mindsets.

Notion is adding ML specialists and “AI engineers” who are comfortable with probabilistic, iterative workflows (more like baking or gardening than deterministic coding), plus designers/engineers who can rapidly learn prompting and model integration.

Software is entering a rebundling phase driven by AI and cost pressure.

After decades of SaaS unbundling, Zhao argues that AI models prefer unified data and endpoints, while enterprises want fewer vendors and lower spend—factors that favor bundled platforms like Notion over many point tools.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

We’re trying to take a modern spin with cloud work and with AI to break the prison of application-based software.

— Ivan Zhao

Wouldn’t it be nice that more people can use their software more creatively? There’s a separation between people who can make software and people who use software.

— Ivan Zhao

Organization might be… we might be moving away from the organization world. Why do you need to organize? Because you can retrieve.

— Ivan Zhao

For a person or for a company, you can have perfect memory. And not only have perfect memory, the right piece of information can push to the right person at the right time.

— Ivan Zhao

We’re in the bundling business. What is the Apple for software? It doesn’t quite exist today. That’s what we’re interested in.

— Ivan Zhao

What Notion is and its Lego-brick approach to software primitivesAI and RAG transforming knowledge retrieval and organizationTalent, org structure, and skills needed for an AI-first application companyThe shift from SaaS fragmentation to bundling and unified workspacesDesign philosophy, holistic product thinking, and Notion’s OS-like ambitionsAI agents, calendaring, and the future of communication and meetingsHistorical computing perspectives (Engelbart, Alan Kay) shaping Notion’s AI strategy

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