The note-taking app Goodnotes, which has historically served users in the classroom, is launching new features designed for professionals. These updates include a new collaborative whiteboard tool, the ability to create documents, and an AI assistant to help users summarize and create content.
The Goodnotes AI assistant works with various input methods, including handwriting, typing, sketches, and voice. The company states that this assistant can summarize meetings, create visuals like charts and diagrams, proofread text, and design templates for documents and note-taking. This technology is partly powered by the company’s acquisition last year of a South Korean startup that specialized in meeting and video summaries.
Alongside the AI features, the company is introducing a whiteboard feature that allows users to collaborate on a blank canvas using text and diagrams. Goodnotes is also adding a new way for users to create documents that can include text, images, GIFs, and tables. This move aligns with a broader trend, as other productivity platforms are also encouraging users to create documents within their apps to provide more context for their own AI assistants.
The founder of Goodnotes, Steven Chen, explained that while the app still has a large user base of students, the goal is to expand the product to become useful for everyone, especially professionals. He noted that text documents are essential in office environments, and a whiteboard is ideal for collaboration. The company aims to be a well-rounded note-taking app for every scenario and every device.
To accompany these new features, Goodnotes is introducing two new subscription plans called Goodnotes Essentials and Goodnotes Pro, which replace its previous numbering system. The Essentials plan costs $11.99 per year and provides access to new file formats and AI features for Q&A and math. The Pro plan costs $35.99 per year and includes integration with Google Calendar and OneDrive, private link sharing and collaboration, a desktop AI bot for recording and transcribing meetings, and AI-powered content suggestions.
There is a limit to how much AI users can access, even on the Pro plan. For unlimited AI credits, the company sells a separate AI pass for $10 per month. Goodnotes continues to offer a one-time purchase option for Apple device users at a cost of $35.99, though this version does not include cloud sync or cross-platform support.
Goodnotes began as an iPad app in 2011 and has since expanded to support iOS, Android, and Windows. The startup reports that it now has more than 25 million monthly active users, an increase from the 21 million users it had in 2023.