GoodNotes Expands Into Professional Market with Collaborative Docs and AI Assistant
Key Points
- GoodNotes adds a collaborative whiteboard for multi‑user brainstorming.
- New document creation tools support text, images, GIFs, and tables.
- AI assistant can summarize meetings, generate visuals, proofread, and suggest templates.
- GoodNotes Essentials costs $11.99 per year; GoodNotes Pro costs $35.99 per year.
- An optional AI pass provides unlimited AI usage for $10 per month.
- Founder Steven Chen says the goal is to serve both students and professionals.
- Platform now available on iOS, Android, and Windows with over 25 million monthly users.
GoodNotes, historically a classroom‑focused note‑taking app, announced a suite of new features aimed at professionals. The updates include a collaborative whiteboard, document creation tools, and an AI assistant that can summarize meetings, generate visuals, proofread, and suggest content. Two subscription tiers—GoodNotes Essentials and GoodNotes Pro—provide varying levels of AI access, cloud integration, and collaboration capabilities. The company’s founder, Steven Chen, said the goal is to become a versatile note‑taking platform for all scenarios and devices.
New Professional‑Oriented Features
GoodNotes, a note‑taking application that originally catered to students, unveiled several additions designed for professional users. The most visible change is a collaborative whiteboard that lets multiple users work together on a blank canvas using text, diagrams, and sketches. Alongside the whiteboard, GoodNotes now supports full‑featured document creation, allowing users to embed text, images, GIFs, and tables within a single file.
AI Assistant Capabilities
The rollout also introduces an AI assistant that works with handwriting, typed input, sketches, and voice. According to the company, the assistant can summarize meetings, generate charts and diagrams, proofread text, and create templates for documents and notes. The AI functionality draws on technology acquired from a South Korean startup that specializes in meeting and video summaries.
Subscription Plans and Pricing
GoodNotes is replacing its previous numbering system with two new subscription plans: GoodNotes Essentials and GoodNotes Pro. Essentials provides access to new file formats, AI for Q&A, and math support, while Pro adds integrations with Google Calendar and OneDrive, private link sharing, collaboration tools, a desktop AI bot for meeting transcription, and AI‑powered content suggestions. The Essentials tier is priced at $11.99 per year, and the Pro tier at $35.99 per year. Users who need unlimited AI usage can purchase an AI pass for $10 per month.
Strategic Positioning
Founder Steven Chen emphasized that while GoodNotes still serves a large student base, the company aims to become a “well‑rounded note‑taking app for every scenario and every device.” By adding document creation and collaborative whiteboarding, GoodNotes joins other productivity platforms such as Grammarly and Canva in encouraging users to generate more structured content within their apps. The expanded feature set is intended to provide richer context for the AI assistant, enhancing its ability to answer user queries.
Platform Availability and User Growth
Originally launched as an iPad app in 2011, GoodNotes has expanded support to iOS, Android, and Windows devices. The company reports having more than 25 million monthly active users, up from 21 million in an earlier count. Users can still purchase a one‑time license for Apple devices at $35.99, though this option lacks cloud sync and cross‑platform support.