Although many of the best note-taking apps have similar features and interfaces, some now incorporate AI in innovative ways that help them stand out. Using AI for taking notes makes sense, no matter whether you want to brainstorm ideas, collect and archive information, or simply stay organized. AI chatbots can even help you expand on your notes, find related information, pick out action items, or summarize just about anything. PCMag has been covering note-taking apps for more than a decade, so you can trust that our picks are actually worth using. When dealing with anything AI-related, remember to fact-check everything.
Best for Brainstorming
Albus
Why We Picked It
Albus is a colorful note-taking app with a distinctive interface. It provides an infinite canvas for creating sticky notes with images, text, videos, and more. When you need to brainstorm freely, it's a great resource. You can also chat with Albus directly as you would with a chatbot. Albus offers a free version as well as a Pro subscription for $20 per month.
Who It's For
People willing to pay: It might be worth spending the money to get the premium version of Albus if you like how it works. The paid plan notably offers semantic intelligence, meaning the app can automatically understand and index all your files into relevant groups.
Visual learners: If you process information visually, Albus' board-based interface should help you keep track of things much more easily compared with traditional note-taking apps.
Best for Teams
Mem
Why We Picked It
Mem can help you come up with ideas just as much as it can help you organize the thoughts you already have. When you create a note, Mem provides context in a sidebar, showing you related information without the need to prompt it first. It's easy to share notes with team members, and a tab with a chatbot-style interface allows you to ask questions related to all your data as well. Mem has a free version, and paid plans start at $12 per month.
Who It's For
Fans of all-in-one platforms: You can do everything from saving important information across the web to turning transcripts into structured notes with Mem, making it an incredibly robust AI note-taking app.
People who hate organizing: If you hate organizing your notes, Mem's contextual memory eliminates the need to do so by automatically surfacing relevant information as necessary.
Best for Research
Why We Picked It
Microsoft Copilot is a major part of Windows 11. It appears in the Start menu and every Microsoft 365 app, including OneNote, where it's arguably most useful for information discovery. Here, you can use the ChatGPT-based Copilot to generate notes on any topic. If you don’t like OneNote, you can do the same things with Copilot in Microsoft Word. Leveraging Copilot anywhere you can write and edit text makes for an excellent AI note-taking experience.
Who It's For
Note generators: Copilot helps you get an overview of a topic without needing to run tons of web searches yourself.
Microsoft users: If you already use (or pay for) a bunch of Microsoft apps or are a habitual Copilot user, using the AI in your notes takes only a few clicks and should feel familiar.
Best AI Features Overall
Why We Picked It
Notion's AI excels at answering questions about your existing data, automating actions based on the text you select, and generating text in response to prompts you provide. Notion's AI can assist you with almost everything you do, including brainstorming related ideas, creating social media posts, summarizing content, and translating, among other things. The combination of these abilities makes Notion a great platform for expanding existing information and generating new ideas.
Who It's For
Software engineers: Notion seems to be popular among software workers, so it should be high on your list if you work in that industry and want to keep pace with your teammates.
Tinkerers: One of Notion's defining traits is its customization potential, making it a great fit if you love to dive deep into an app and tweak things to your preferences.
Best for AI Prompting
Reflect
Why We Picked It
Reflect is a minimalist, yet feature-rich, note-taking app that stands out for its ChatGPT-based features and robust prompting capabilities. From within a new note, Reflect gives you a wide variety of customizable, easy-to-access prompts, such as "act as a copy editor" or "write a summary" to choose from. You can even save custom prompts to use later. Reflect is free to try for 14 days, and it costs $10 per month, billed annually, afterwards.
Who It's For
ChatGPT users: If you use ChatGPT routinely, Reflect's AI features should immediately feel familiar. The app uses the GPT-4o model and other technologies from OpenAI, including Whisper. Alternatively, you can switch to Claude's Sonnet model.
People who hate writing AI prompts: Do you like the idea of using AI to help you take notes but don't want to craft prompts over and over again? Reflect conveniently provides common sets of instructions and helps you reuse custom ones.