AI Smart Notes: How Does Goodnotes Usher in a "Human-Centric" Future?

In today's era when the AI wave is sweeping through productivity tools, the note - taking app market has also been caught up in a fierce "feature competition."

However, a thought - provoking paradox has emerged: as tools become more and more "intelligent" and "all - powerful," we sometimes find ourselves farther away from inspiration.

The "AI - enabled" transformation of many apps has inadvertently become a burden for users to learn and adapt to, and may even disrupt the users' originally smooth thinking and recording processes.

As the first electronic note - taking app in the industry to offer a free and intelligent interactive experience, Goodnotes has recently undergone a major product upgrade. It has launched features such as whiteboards, text documents, and Goodnotes AI, which is closely tailored to productivity needs. Targeting professional users and office workers, it further integrates AI deeply into the entire workflow.

Compared with the infinite possibilities brought by AI, the company wants to answer a more fundamental question first: in the era of intelligence, how can a productivity tool serve human habits like a friend rather than just serving the application of AI?

Goodnotes is no novice when it comes to such questions. Since its launch in 2011, Goodnotes has been focusing on the handwriting experience and now has over 25 million monthly active users. When you open the app, you still see simple, casual, and distraction - free notebooks and folders.

After integrating AI capabilities, Goodnotes' evolution from a productivity "tool" to a "partner" provides a unique perspective for the entire industry to return to "human - centeredness" from cold tool rationality.

The Evolutionary Path of "User Cultivation"

Goodnotes' product iteration history is a typical example of "user cultivation."

Looking back at Goodnotes' product iteration path, it has always been centered around user needs. Minh Tran, the COO of Goodnotes, told 36Kr that the team is "very close" to users. Through community - based operations, the team continuously listens to, absorbs, and addresses users' needs and suggestions, which helps it make key decisions during each technological transformation.

For example, shortly after the launch of the Apple Pencil Pro, Goodnotes "listened to users" and invested in technology, becoming the first to optimize pressure sensitivity. The newly upgraded whiteboard and text document features, which are more suitable for structured creation, are also the result of long - term tracking of users' creative workflows and are the most requested features by users.

This in - depth symbiotic user concept has enabled Goodnotes to create a productivity app with a loyal user base. Users spend an average of 70 minutes per day using the app. The fragmented needs generated during users' usage have continuously translated into professional barriers.

At the same time, Goodnotes seems to be revealing an anti - intuitive rule: in the field of productivity, extreme professionalism may have a broader reach than superficial diversification.

Actually, the inspiration for the product came from the founder, Steven Chan's own needs during his university years. The inefficiency of paper notes in mathematical formula derivation and draft modification led to the core concept of Goodnotes - to reconstruct the way of recording unstructured knowledge and thinking through digital tools.

Goodnotes' focus on the "handwriting experience" has given it an inherent advantage in dealing with unstructured data in the AI era:

Handwriting is not only the most instinctive way of human expression but also one of the unstructured data with the highest information density, containing the thinking trajectories of professionals from various industries. After the maturity of AI technology, this interactive cognitive framework has the potential to be transformed into new structured productivity.

Over the past 15 years, guided by the user - first concept, Goodnotes has achieved three key leaps:

The first was in 2015, riding on the wave of the release of the Apple Pencil. The product evolved from being usable to being highly desirable, becoming one of the most popular iPad productivity apps.

The emergence of the Apple Pencil not only solved the technical bottleneck of electronic writing but also verified the forward - looking nature of Goodnotes' long - term focus on the handwriting interaction path. Through in - depth integration, Goodnotes was the first to improve the sampling rate and pressure sensitivity recognition accuracy to the level of professional digital tablets. In the following years when the user base soared, the team size expanded from a handful of people to over 300.

The second leap occurred during the popularization of tablet devices and the continuous improvement of product experience. Through cross - platform technological evolution and ecosystem building, users can freely switch between multiple devices, enjoying the efficiency and flexibility brought by electronic notes.

The third leap was the introduction of AI. Based on years of accumulation in multi - modal rendering technology, Goodnotes organically combines unstructured content such as handwriting and voice with structured information, creating a flexible and intelligent creative space. Users can get real - time assistance from AI at any stage of recording and creation, easily transforming unstructured note content into structured knowledge, significantly lowering the creative threshold and improving efficiency.

Through long - term accumulation in multi - rendering technology, Goodnotes integrates unstructured data such as handwritten notes and meeting recordings into a searchable and editable intelligent knowledge graph and combines it with Goodnotes AI to assist users in content creation. Users' creative processes are diverse, including handwriting, typing, and voice recording. Different from other AI products on the market that are still limited to a single format, Goodnotes has chosen a new direction - enabling AI to understand and process multi - modal content such as handwriting, text, images, and voice simultaneously, providing truly intelligent support for every creative method of users.

These three key evolutions are not hasty shifts to chase technological trends but "inevitable choices" based on standing with users.

User experience and user choices are dynamic processes, not static standards. Therefore, while the productivity industry is competing for large - model capabilities, Goodnotes spent over a year developing the features that users need most and solved the visual rendering problem of the infinite canvas under extreme scaling.

In addition, Goodnotes' self - developed patent advantages in handwriting latency and visual fidelity are an insurmountable technological moat and an experience barrier built through "slow and steady" efforts. It confirms the "paradox" in the productivity tool industry: the ability to respect users' "thinking precision" is as scarce a competitive advantage as the speed of intelligence.

Tangible Boundaries and "Invisible AI"

Compared with other intelligent note - taking apps, Goodnotes' core advantage lies in its in - depth support for the "creative workflow."

Take a technical solution discussion meeting of an engineering team as an example. Participants can mix handwritten formulas, flowchart sketches, and voice annotations on an infinite canvas, and Goodnotes AI can recognize this multi - modal information in real - time and provide structured information support.

It can be seen that Goodnotes' latest upgrade precisely targets the "innovation - driven" and "element reconstruction" aspects emphasized by new - quality productivity.

The whiteboard feature breaks the linear and spatial limitations of traditional notes through the infinite canvas, allowing fragmented inspiration to be presented as free - flowing thinking trajectories. The text document feature breaks through the app's original form, establishing a complete workflow from handwritten drafts to standardized documents, enabling Goodnotes to shift from being mainly handwriting - based to "emphasizing multi - modal input."

Based on the "element reconstruction" in these two aspects, Goodnotes AI can become a productivity partner.

Compared with the lightweight recording of mobile phone memos, Goodnotes has established an intangible content boundary and created a complete creative delivery chain from "inspiration generation" to "result output." The loss between the germination of ideas and the delivery of results is the common efficiency gap in the current productivity field.

The second pain point in the AI - enabled transformation of productivity tools lies in the trade - off between "power" and "restraint."

Goodnotes AI's interaction logic reflects a philosophy of restraint: through a design that minimizes interference, AI is positioned as an intelligent agent that stands by rather than actively intervenes. This concept of "invisible AI" is also reflected in the interaction mode that only appears when the user actively triggers it, effectively protecting the user's flow state during the creative process.

It can be seen that the highest realm of AI capabilities is to become an imperceptible thinking assistant and extension for users, and to be an efficient partner that can be "summoned and dismissed at will."

"In many cases, people's efficiency comes from continuous focus. Any intelligence that interrupts the cognitive process actually goes against the original intention of productivity tools."

Minh Tran believes that the essence of intelligent productivity still lies in people, not the tool itself. Therefore, productivity apps should also carefully consider the degree of AI's involvement in the product. Goodnotes is pursuing an "invisible intelligence."

Goodnotes' layout in the field of educational technology, especially its exploration in some STEM disciplines, also demonstrates its ability to deeply integrate AI with professional scenarios. For example, Goodnotes' built - in math assistant allows users to learn math while writing. For problems ranging from simple arithmetic to complex calculus, users can either directly get the solutions or choose to be guided step - by - step by AI.

The unstructured learning, calculation, and experimental processes in STEM education provide a perfect entry point for Goodnotes AI. In addition to math, Goodnotes is also collaborating with schools around the world to implement intelligent note - taking in more educational scenarios, promoting the intelligent transformation of global education.

In professional applications, the potential of handwritten intelligent notes is expanding. Minh Tran found that Goodnotes also has a large number of users from professional groups such as lawyers and dentists. They frequently use Goodnotes' function of importing PDFs, making handwritten annotations on PDFs, and batch - marking and revising documents. These usage scenarios indicate that the demand for unstructured information processing is also widespread in the B - side market.

In the ToB field, Goodnotes has shown a cautious and practical product - service strategy: while maintaining the consistency of the core product, it provides customers with deployment options to selectively turn off cloud synchronization or disable AI to meet security and compliance requirements.

In the current era of homogeneous AI tools, Goodnotes has once again defined its capabilities: the secret to balancing large - scale expansion and in - depth exploration in niche markets is to always view things from the perspective of the product and users, rather than AI commercialization, and to optimize the experience in key scenarios to the extreme.

Creativity: Defending the Presence of "People"

Goodnotes' ambition is not to create an all - powerful AI but to prove that human thinking trajectories are still indispensable in the digital age. To defend the presence of "people" in the face of AI's power, it is necessary to create an expression space that combines flexibility, purity, and standardization.

Upholding the value of handwriting is Goodnotes' way of embracing the "original form of thinking."

In the AI era, the value of handwriting has not been replaced but amplified: as AI becomes more proficient in processing structured information, human productivity is increasingly released into unstructured, innovation - and creation - oriented scenarios such as inspiration generation, brainstorming, idea organization, and prototype design.

These scenarios are becoming the most valuable core parts of modern knowledge work. In these scenarios, handwriting is not only a more flexible information carrier but also a concrete expression of the cognitive process. The handwriting memory, impromptu annotations, and unique visual layout behind it also form a scarce "human touch" in the digital age.

The combination of the emotional expression of personal thinking processes and efficient intelligent processing has enabled Goodnotes to pioneer a differentiated path of human - machine collaboration. Under Goodnotes' pen, the relationship between humans and machines has been redefined: humans should always be at the starting point and center of the innovation process, while technology is the lever that surrounds and runs through the whole process.

In an era of continuous technological evolution, guarding the origin of thinking through handwriting is the first level of "upholding," and maintaining the ability of independent judgment is the second.

Goodnotes' independence in its business model constitutes the company's soft power in its decision - making mechanism. Not sacrificing product experience for growth has led Goodnotes to make many "slow and steady" efforts and maintain autonomy in its pricing strategy.

After this upgrade, Goodnotes has launched a subscription model at 49.9 yuan per year and a one - time payment option of 149 yuan in the Chinese market, which is quite competitive in terms of price. It basically achieves the original intention of making the product accessible to everyone and also shows respect for users' digital asset rights.

When AI applications are stuck in the bottleneck of "how to educate users," Goodnotes offers an alternative solution: a truly intelligent tool should be both quiet and proactive. It should not disrupt the thinking process but actively adapt to and assist people's cognitive habits.

Future AI partners still need to "learn from users." Instead of shaping users with all - encompassing efficiency, they should let the intelligent experience seep into every natural interaction moment like water.

In Goodnotes' future vision, efficiency and emotion, technology and humanity will coexist on an infinite canvas that combines handwriting and AI, and everyone's innate creative potential will be unleashed.