AI Agents are the Future of Work: Believes Notion's core mission has shifted from being a tool for humans to a platform for managing AI agents that perform the work, a change reflected in his personal abandonment of manual coding [21, 2, 3].
Model Agnosticism is a Strategic Imperative: Advocates for a 'Switzerland for models' approach, ensuring Notion and its customers are not locked into any single AI provider and can always leverage the best available technology [15].
Coding Agents are the Precursor to AGI: Posits that coding agents are the 'kernel of AGI' and that AGI will fundamentally be a coding agent, indicating a belief that the path to general intelligence lies in autonomous code generation and problem-solving [7].
Rapid, Continuous Adaptation is Necessary: Embraces a high-velocity development cycle, where Notion's core AI infrastructure is rewritten approximately every six months to keep pace with the accelerating progress in AI [19].
AI Unlocks Exponential Productivity: Asserts that engineers who effectively use AI coding tools can achieve productivity gains of 100 to 1,000 times, viewing AI as a fundamental multiplier of human capability [20].
▶The Agent-Centric WorkplaceMar–Apr 2026
Simon Last articulates a fundamental shift in Notion's mission, moving from a tool for direct human work to a platform for managing AI agents that perform tasks. This is reflected in his personal workflow, where he now manages coding agents instead of writing code himself [2, 3, 21].
This positions Notion not just as a productivity app competitor but as an operating system for AI-driven labor, a strategic pivot that could attract a different class of enterprise customer focused on automation.
▶Rapid AI Productization and IterationMar 2026
The claims detail an aggressive timeline for Notion's AI development, from initial GPT-4 access in 2022 to launching features in February 2023 and a full agentic product by Fall 2023 [8, 9, 5]. This speed is enabled by a willingness to rewrite their internal AI harness every six months to adapt to new technology [19].
Notion's ability to rapidly iterate and ship complex AI products suggests a highly agile engineering culture, which is a significant competitive advantage in the fast-moving AI space.
▶The 'Switzerland for Models' StrategyMar 2026
Last explicitly states that Notion's strategy is to be model-agnostic, providing customers with access to the best models without vendor lock-in [15]. This is further evidenced by plans to integrate multiple high-quality Chinese language models [13].
This strategy de-risks Notion's dependency on any single model provider and positions it as a flexible, customer-centric platform, which could be a key differentiator in a market where competitors might be tied to a single ecosystem.
▶AI as the Future of Coding and CreativityMar–Apr 2026
Last holds a strong conviction that AI agents are the future of software development, believing they are the 'kernel of AGI' and can make engineers 100 to 1,000 times more productive [7, 20]. This belief is put into practice through his personal cessation of manual coding and Notion's internal tools like the 'design playground' for AI-assisted prototyping [2, 6].
Last's deep personal adoption and advocacy for AI in coding signals that Notion's product roadmap will likely be heavily skewed towards empowering developers and technical users with increasingly powerful agentic tools.