Evernote Revamps with AI-Powered Features in Major V11 Update

Major Evernote Update Taps AI for Search and Transcription, But Not Writing

Rob writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. The note-taking app that once defined its category is receiving its first major update since being acquired by a company that many of its users had never heard of at the time. Evernote's V11 release, announced Monday, follows two years of fairly intense iterative work by its new corporate parent, Bending Spoons, and infuses AI deeper into the app's search and transcription features. "With V11, we're trying to move one step closer to realizing our long-term mission of creating an intuitive and personalized platform that customers can use as their second brain," says product lead Federico Simionato. I have used Evernote since 2010-not always to my satisfaction-and have been paying for one premium tier or another since 2014, so I had to use that service for this conversation. I took notes in Evernote's Mac client while recording it in its Android app for later AI transcription. That usage scenario would have guaranteed a sync conflict a few years ago, but the service's cloud synchronization ably fielded it this time. While many other attempts to put AI to work in text-based apps have started with having it do the writing for humans, Evernote's new AI assistant-developed with OpenAI-emphasizes making more sense of your existing notes. "We combine the powerful search functionalities of Evernote with OpenAI's SDK to easily surface random content through a conversational chat," Simionato says. Simionato demonstrated that by typing searches into the AI assistant's chat window for help with a trip to Barcelona, and the assistant recognized that a note recounting a visit to Parc Guell was relevant to that query. He then typed follow-on questions into the chat window to get details like the confirmation number for the flight, and showed how you can launch a web search to see if he should adjust anything in those plans. The assistant did not warn of any impending transit strikes, something I have learned to watch out for over years of covering MWC there. Evernote's AI assistant can also summarize notes and compile them into new notes. But when Simionato asked the agent to put together a three-day itinerary for that trip, it presented the same suggestions for day one's morning, lunch, afternoon, and evening. Evernote had opted not to lead with AI writing because customers weren't asking for it. "We haven't been as focused on text generation," Simionato says. "We tried to follow a bottom-up approach where we just asked people and we built what people needed rather than trying to develop something and see if it sticks." V11 also upgrades Evernote's existing search function to "semantic search," which is another way to say that you don't need to include an exact keyword to have this surface relevant notes. And it brings a significant upgrade to the AI Transcribe feature. That's already seen considerable improvements since its debut in 2024, advancing from returning lengthy and unbroken blocks of text to automatically adding boldface headings and bulleted and numbered lists. Other AI note-taking services already do that, and the lack of that feature in the current software made its transcripts harder to read. It also heard "Parc Guell" as "park well," which could indicate insufficient familiarity with Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí's work or just mean the software got confused by Simionato's accent. As before, the transcription feature is limited to recordings of one hour at most, with transcription done in the cloud after you request it. Evernote, which roughly doubled its rates at the end of 2023, remains considerably more expensive than other note-taking apps: a Personal plan with 10GB a month of uploads costs $129.99 a year, which breaks down to $10.83 per month, while a Professional plan that doubles the upload quota and includes Adobe Acrobat Standard runs $169.99 a year, equating to $14.16 a month. The service does still offer a free version, but since the end of 2023, it's been limited to one notebook with 50 notes. Evernote's pricing is not particularly competitive, especially compared with free options like Apple Notes or Google Keep, but also Microsoft's OneNote, included with the Microsoft 365 cloud service, which can be a borderline mandatory expense for many tech users. But those apps have issues of their own; Apple Notes, for example, has no Windows or Android clients, Google Keep has no Mac or Windows desktop apps, and OneNote dropped its Evernote-migration tool in September 2022. Simionato says Evernote is holding its rates constant for V11 but is "considering" changing them to make a clearer distinction between its two plans. One major form of customer feedback was that "personal and professional tiers are too close." He didn't offer a breakdown between personal and pro plans, but did say that Evernote had found a sustainable niche in the market. "Customer retention on Evernote has never been higher," he says. "It's a very healthy business now." Few people would've said that in January 2023, when Bending Spoons bought Evernote at an unannounced price. The service had seen years of neglect interspersed with pledges to improve it, and the acquisition of a Silicon Valley startup by a company in Milan did not land well with many longtime users. "Rightly, understandably got confused about it," Simionato says. "Usually when you see your favorite product in the world, it's either neutral or bad news; it's rarely good news." Bending Spoons has since embarked on a minor buying spree, acquiring other web services and apps, including the file-sending tool WeTransfer, the former WeWork subsidiary Meetup, and the video-recording and streaming service Streamyard. Simionato did not voice any WeWork-scale ambitions for Evernote, which is probably a good thing considering how that grotesquely overvalued startup imploded. "We're not trying to capture, like, hundreds of millions of free users," he says. "We are very happy to serve a few million...customers."

Evernote's biggest update since 2020 goes all in on AI

If you're like me, it's probably been a hot minute since you've thought about Evernote. For years, the note-taking app, once a darling of the App Store, faced declining popularity and profitability. The last time it grabbed headlines was in 2022 when it was sold to Milan-based developer Bending Spoons. Approximately nine months later, Bending Spoons laid off nearly all of Evernote's US workforce, and relocated what remained of the company's operations to Europe. Now, Evernote wants to be in the conversation again. Since taking over the app, Bending Spoons has released more than 200 improvements, culminating today with the release of Evernote v11. The company is touting the update, which is the first major release for Evernote since its poorly received v10 release back in 2020. The new version brings a handful of new AI features to Evernote, including one that Bending Spoons collaborated with OpenAI to develop. "My wish for v11 is that people give it a try and see how fast and reliable it is, how complete it is in what it offers," Federico Simionato, Evenote's product lead, said over a video chat. "I think people have an outdated opinion of Evernote that used to match reality, when Evernote was slow and unreliable." The first of the new features Bending Spoons is introducing today is called AI Assistant. Simionato describes it as having ChatGPT inside of Evernote. No surprise since the company collaborated with OpenAI to make it. As you can probably guess, you can use AI Assistant to search through your notes and notebooks, but the tool's utility goes beyond that. It allows you to interact with your documents and ask follow-up questions. AI Assistant can also generate new content, and you can decide how what it creates is integrated within your existing notes and notebooks. In my demo, Simionato used AI Assistant to add a flight ticket number to a note he had dedicated to an upcoming trip to Spain. Over time, Bending Spoons plans to make AI Assistant more powerful, with the company working on making it possible for the chatbot to assign tags to notes and perform bulk actions across multiple documents, among other capabilities. By default, Bending Spoons will enable AI Assistant for all paid users. A set of granular controls will allow people to decide what content AI Assistant can access. The agreement Bending Spoons has with OpenAI means the company can't train its models on data from Evernote users. Additionally, any data sent to the cloud for processing will only be held as long it takes to complete the user's request. Part of the reason Bending Spoons is taking a more forward approach with AI Assistant is due to user feedback. In 2023, the company released a tool called AI Search. Simionato says his team was "extremely careful" to add friction to the experience to ensure people felt Evernote was respecting their privacy. To that end, you had to dig into the app's settings to enable AI Search before it would work. According to Simionato, most people found that setup was "too cumbersome," and with most people becoming more comfortable with AI tools, the company decided to make AI Assistant visible from the jump. The other new feature Bending Spoons is introducing today is one some Evernote users have been waiting for a decade: Semantic Search. Instead of trying to find a note using an exact word or phrase you used inside of it, Semantic Search allows Evernote to filter through your documents using context. Simionato demonstrates the feature in action by typing "Barcelona trip" into the new interface, and Evernote surfaces a note he created about a trip to Girona. If you're not familiar, Girona is a city about 62 miles northeast of Barcelona and part of Catalonia. The document Evernote pulled up had no mention of Barcelona in it, but that didn't prevent the tool from finding it. According to Simionato, this is the most requested feature of longtime Evernote users and one Bending Spoons is happy it can finally deliver on. Lastly, the company has expanded the app's built-in recording and transcription capabilities. Building on AI Transcribe, which Bending Spoons first introduced in 2024, Evernote can now record audio from both in-person and online meetings and automatically transcribe and summarize what's said. This feature should work in every language that Evernote currently supports. As mentioned, Evernote's new AI features are available to all paid users. Simionato said Bending Spoons is working on making a trail available to free users sometime in the next few months. For now, the price of Evernote's paid plans isn't going up, but Simionato noted the company plans to adjust pricing in the coming months, mostly to account for the fact there aren't many notable differences between the Personal and Professional tiers.

Evernote adds OpenAI-powered AI assistant

Evernote has released its most substantial platform update since 2020, integrating a suite of artificial intelligence features developed with OpenAI to enhance how users create, organize, and interact with notes on the application. Central to the update is an AI Assistant, which utilizes large language models and is accessible through a dedicated chat interface. This tool allows users to search, organize, and enrich their notes. It can also generate new content and add relevant tags to existing information. Complementing the assistant is a new Semantic Search function. This AI-driven capability is designed to improve note retrieval efficiency by helping users locate related notes and quickly view the most relevant content within their archives. For professional and collaborative settings, the update introduces an AI Meeting Notes feature. This function automatically generates summaries and transcripts of key conversations. Another component, AI Edit, builds upon earlier capabilities such as AI Note Cleanup. Currently available in beta for Desktop and Web users, this feature is consistently refined based on feedback and provides several functions to enhance written content. These capabilities include: The collection of AI-driven enhancements positions Evernote as a more intelligent and efficient tool for taking notes. The integration of this technology aims to save users time and help them focus on primary tasks, reflecting a strategy to maintain a competitive and relevant position by embedding advanced artificial intelligence to assist with a wide range of organizational needs.