Hey guys!
Welcome back to my channel.
My name is Shu.
Today's topic is everybody's favourite -- note-taking apps with AI.
and I'm super excited to share with you my top 8 picks.
Let's get started!
There are many note-taking apps but Reflect is quickly gaining popularity, especially
since the recent update that allows you to use GPT-4 within the app.
As far as I know, it's probably the only note app that can do that at the moment.
So how does it work?
Well, for instance, you can choose AI palette from the slash command menu where you can
select from the prompt list such as write a summary, simplify, condense and fix grammar.
The variety of available propmpts is one of the great things about Reflect.
But on top of that, you can create your own prompts and save them as templates.
Simply write what you want from AI and then save it by clicking on the arrow icon.
Then you can use this anytime quickly.
Alternatively, you can highlight a sentence or a paragraph and then choose this magic
wand icon where you can choose how you want the AI to help you.
So that's the AI aspect of Reflect.
It's a really cool note-taking app with such a beatufiul design.
I love how clean the interface is which makes it intuitive and easy to use.
Some note apps tend to pack too many things and makes it slow and heavy.
But Reflect feels super light and responsive.
I imported lots of book highlights and notes but it still works super fast and smooth.
Map, which is their graph view, looks really nice too.
It can be useful if you want to get the overview of your notes and see how things and ideas
are related to each other.
Also, it's available on iOS too which is great beacause some new note apps still don't have
mobile versions.
So you can use Reflect anywhere you go.
Personally, I love that its got Readwise integration that makes it easy to import your book and
article highlights into Reflect.
It's very important for me.
If a note app doesn't have a proper Readwise integration, I don't think I will use it.
Anyway, it costs $10 a month to use.
It's pretty reasonable.
Okay, let's move on to the next one, which is Mem.
Mem is actually one of the first apps to attept to integrate AI into note-taking and knowledge
management.
Because of that, it's pretty advanced and its use of AI is incredible.
I feel like it's one step ahead of the other note apps in that aspect.
Let me show you why.
So for example, when you're writing something down, Mem will automatically analyse it and
suggest similar notes you have.
Say I'm writing about note-taking methods.
It knows that's what I'm writing about and it will bring up relevant notes for review
on the sidebar.
This is frankly amazing because it's automating the process of gathering materials and resources
for your writing which is probably one of the most time-consuming parts of writing.
And secondly, it helps find links between ideas.
Sometimes I see these suggestions and think "oh wow I didn't see that connection" or like
"oh I completely forgot about that passage from that book!
I could use it for this article".
This kind of real-time analysis is super useful and I think that's how AI shines the most
as your writing assistant.
Anyway, just like Reflect, you can also use the slash command to ask AI to write things
for you.
You could simply ask it to continue writing from where you left off.
Or you can write your own prompts or questions.
It's very fast and takes only a few seconds to get a response.
But I guess this is where there's room for imporvement.
For instance, it doesn't have as many prompts as Reflect does.
And also you cannot save your custom prompt, which will definitely make Mem even better
AI note taking app.
So that's the AI aspect of Mem.
It's such a polished app overall.
I like it has a dedicated section for your tasks where you can see all of your todos
in one place.
So you could easily use it as your todo app.
Plus, it has iOS mobile version so you can see your task list on the go.
Mem is also a fantastic collaboration tool.
For instance you can connect your Gmail account to Mem as well as creating groups so it's
easy to share your notes with people.
So, it's great as a personal knowledge management tool, but also as a company or team knowledge
management tool.
That's a huge difference between Mem and other note apps.
The only thing is that connecting Mem and Readwise seems like a hustle.
Apparently there's a way to do it, but I couldn't be bothered to watch the whole tutorial since
I'm lazy.
So I wish there was an easier way to do it.
But it's a triavial issue.
I cannot make this video without mentioning Notion.
We all know how powerful Notion is, especially after the recent introduction of Notion AI.
I'm pretty sure you've heard of it because it was literally everywhere a while ago.
So I won't go into details.
I will just say that it's a super handy tool.
Similar to Reflect, you can use AI for writing using various prompts, as well as other things
like generating a list of todos based on your current note.
Like Mem, Notion is exellent both as a personal and team knowledge management tool.
Speaking of Notion, many people use it to mange thier contacts and social network.
But a much easier way to do it is with Dex who is today's sponsor.
It packs so many features that make it effortless to connect with interesting people and keep
in touch with them as well as your friends.
With Dex, whenever you find someone you want to connect with, you can directly import their
information into your contact list with just a few clicks.
And then you can add a note or add a reminder so you don't forget to get in touch with them.
This works on pretty much any social network website such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
It's great especially on LinkedIn because Dex has this AI-powered feature where you
can craft a reply or a message with one click.
And then you just need to send it or edit it a little bit.
This honestly saves so much time and helps you reach out and reply to more people.
All the contacts can be found from your Dex dashboard.
It's not just the ones you saved but also the ones you imported from Facebook, Gmail
and more, which lets you build an unified contact list that you can always refer to.
I love this because I no longer have to switch between apps to find the peopleI want to reach
out to.
But my personal favourite is that you get reminders for people's birthdays.
That was the only reason I was using Facebook, so maybe I can finally delete it now.
Anyway, there's so much more to explore, and it's honestly a complete toolkit for anyone
who wants to meet more people and stay in touch with your friends, which is surprisingly
hard as an adult.
So using Dex can make that process so much easier and fun.
If you're interested, you can check it out from the link below.
Thanks!
Okay, let's go back to the list.
The fourth one is my favourite.
It's Napkin.
It's another early adapter of AI as a note app.
It's a little bit similar to Mem in terms of how it uses AI.
When you create a new note, it analyses its content and suggest similar notes from the
past, making it easier to discover connections between notes.
I love this app because of its simplicity.
No fancy features like the graph view or bi-directional linking.
It's like your personal library with an AI assistant librarian in it.
I ended up using Napkin because I realised that I don't need those fancy features after
trying so many note apps.
But you can check my video on how I use Napkin for more.
Number 5 is Personal AI.
This might be the most unique one on this list, but I do believe that this is where
note-taking apps might be heading in the future.
The way it works is completely different from other note apps.
When you sign up, you get your own AI chatbot.
But it's not like ChatGPT that already knows tons of things.
It's a baby AI who knows absolutely nothing.
So your job is to feed it with data and information.
Just like you do with a note app, you teach it what you learned and think by writing it
down.
And your AI will remember it and organise the information for you.
It doesn't have to be texts.
You could just give it an URL to a Youtube video or an article you saw and it will learn
the content automatically.
So if you ask it what it learned recently, it will give you a bunch of things from the
items you fed.
The way I see it is that it's a self-organising knowledge base that you can talk to and interact
with.
Anyway, like a normal note app, you could also create a new document where you can write
your thoughts.
As you write, it's possible to talk to your AI for ideas and get suggestions which are
of course only based on what you've already fed it.
And also supposedly, it's possible to get a real time suggestion from AI as to what
to write next.
But it's not working on mine.
I have no idea why.
It just doesn't work.
So, there are some not-so-small problems with this app.
Nonetheless, I'm very excited about it.
If it continues to imporve, it could completely revolutionise the way people take notes and
write.
Another note app with a great AI assistant is Bundle IQ.
I think this one is great if you're a student and academic.
It's a new app so it might not be as polished as the other ones, but it's getting better
fast, especially with the latest AI update.
What's cool is that as you write or take notes, AI can analyse the content and suggest related
notes you have just like in Mem.
For example, If I'm writing about glucose levels, it automatically gives me a list of
notes I've taken on that topic.
This way, I can gather resouce materials and write much faster.
But that's not all.
It also shows you relevant passages from PDF files too.
So if you read lots of academic papers, you can upload them to BundleIQ which will analyse
them.
Then you can get a AI summary of the entire PDF or each page.
And if you're writing a paper, you can get related passages from those PDFs.
It's great because it saves you time from doing this manually which can take hours.
Additonally, you can ask questions about the content of each note and PDF file too.
Say you're reading this paper and you just want to know something.
You can just ask it and get an answer.
This is great especially if the document is complex and long.
So you see, these features can be extremely useful for writers, students, academics and
so on.
Finally, the last two apps are Logseq and Obsidian, because these two can do anything.
They are the ultimate note-taking apps with a wide range of plugins.
So naturally, you have some kind of AI integration too.
But this extensive customizability doesn't necessary mean good because you can easily
overcomplicate things and create a mess or spend so much time trying to build the "perfect"
system that you don't actually do anything.
Anyway like Notion, there are many tutorials and videos about them, so I won't go into
details.
But if you're interested you can check my previous video.
By the way, if you're looking for a better way to organize your tasks and projects, check
out this guide I made.
It covers about 30 popular todo and planner apps so you can find the best one for you.
Cool!
Thanks for watching!
Bye.