1.7 – Notion AI Blocks Lesson

Lesson Overview

This lesson introduces AI Custom Blocks in Notion, a feature designed for anyone who wants automated help with content creation or review, directly inside their documents. Instead of running AI commands each time you want a summary or a list of action items, you can turn these into reusable buttons right where you need them—at the top of your meeting notes, brainstorm pages, chat logs, or any recurring document.

AI Custom Blocks help streamline workflows that rely on repeated patterns: for example, capturing key outcomes from every team meeting or ensuring all project logs get an automated summary and list of next steps. With these blocks in place, you don’t have to remember prompts or retype the same requests—just click a button to process your content.

This lesson fits into the broader goal of building intelligent Notion workspaces. By learning to use AI Custom Blocks, you develop repeatable systems for content review and organization—important for project managers, team leads, educators, and solo creators who want consistent output and less manual work. For example, teams can standardize meeting notes, and individuals can create custom checks for quality writing or quick overviews of work-in-progress.

Who This Is For

AI Custom Blocks are useful for anyone who works with recurring content or wants to save time on routine tasks, including:

• Project managers documenting meetings and follow-ups
• Team leads organizing shared documentation
• Educators or students tracking class notes and summaries
• Customer support teams logging conversations and key actions
• Writers drafting stories, articles, or reports that need quick reviews
• Anyone looking to customize Notion workflows with personal shortcut buttons

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Setting up custom AI blocks comes early in any documentation process, right as you’re designing a page template or setting work habits. For example, when organizing meeting notes, you might add a “Summarize” and “Action Items” button before taking any notes. After each meeting, you fill in raw notes and use the AI buttons for instant summaries and clear next steps—saving you the time and effort of manual review.

Another example: a support team could include custom AI blocks in each daily log, enabling fast extraction of important updates or required follow-ups. By placing these buttons at the top of relevant pages, they become natural checkpoints for reviewing content.

This approach supports workflows where speed and consistency matter, freeing up your time for higher-value work.

## Technical & Workflow Benefits

Manual methods of summarizing meetings or finding action items take time, especially when information is scattered across long or frequent notes. In contrast, AI Custom Blocks let you set up these actions as repeatable buttons—anyone on your team can use them without retyping prompts every time.

For meeting notes, you save time generating summaries for each session, ensuring nothing important gets overlooked. In team settings, custom AI blocks promote standardization—everyone follows the same process, and outcomes are easier to track.

Another benefit is flexibility: If you’re drafting emails or reviewing grammar, you can create dedicated blocks for those needs. Over time, AI Custom Blocks help scale your productivity by reducing manual, repetitive effort while lifting the quality and clarity of your documentation or creative work.

## Practice Exercise

Try setting up custom AI blocks for a real meeting notes page:

1. Open or create a page called “Meeting Notes” and add sample notes from a recent discussion.
2. Add two Custom AI Blocks at the top: one labeled “Briefly summarize this page” and one for “Find action items.”
3. Format these AI blocks side-by-side as columns to keep them accessible.

After you’ve entered your notes, use each block to generate a summary and a list of action items.
**Reflection:** How much time did this save you compared to manually reading through and summarizing the meeting? Could other types of documents benefit from similar AI shortcuts?

Course Context Recap

AI Custom Blocks build on earlier lessons about Notion AI, helping you automate common writing and review tasks across your workspace. Having already worked with built-in AI actions, you’re now able to make reusable tools that fit your specific workflow. Next, the course will move to advanced ways to further automate, personalize, or share your Notion pages—unlocking even more efficiency and flexibility. Explore the full course to see how these skills connect and build on each other.