Goodnotes is entering the realm of shared work beyond individual notes with the launch of collaborative documents, an adaptable whiteboard, and AI assistance designed for professional teams. The update also transitions the app from a handwriting performer into more of a collaborative space where notes, diagrams, and decisions all reside on one page — or document — that to me is like this AI attic or basement where everything can be easily found.
The AI assistant can command full sentences and phrases in writing, typing, drawing — and even voice — then transform the jumble into summaries, charts and diagrams, clean copy, or reusable templates. Augmented by real-time collaboration and richer document creation, the package is aimed at meetings, project planning, research debriefs, and client deliverables — scenarios in which speed, clarity, and a shared context count.
What’s in the new Goodnotes workspace and whiteboard
Now, the new whiteboard allows for collaboration on a blank canvas with text, shapes, and diagrams — helpful for sprint planning, architecture mapping, or retrospective boards. For more organized work, its document composer accepts text, images, GIFs, and tables, making it easy for teams to go from brainstorm to brief without switching tools.
Goodnotes’ AI feels like a context-aware assistant scribbled in the margins. It can condense a messy hand-captured meeting, extract action items, generate a first-pass chart from rough numbers, or copyedit and tighten up a proposal. And the assistant can also generate templates for commonly performed rituals (like discovery call notes, usability test plans, and weekly status reports) so that teams can standardize how they collect and share information.
Behind the scenes, the company is tapping technology from a South Korean AI startup that specializes in meeting and video summarization. That investment is evidenced by features such as a desktop bot that can record and transcribe conversations, packaging key points for swift review.
Crafted for professional yet real-world flows
In practice, the pitch is simple: you catch what’s inspiring you the way it’s coming at you fastest — scribbles on a tablet, a screenshot, a voice memo — and machine learning gets your work organized before you spend any time doing so yourself.
- A product manager could turn workshop sketches into a tidy user flow.
- A consultant could transform meeting notes into a client-ready summary.
- A finance lead could ask natural-language questions of a planning doc with embedded tables.
This puts Goodnotes in the same company as collaborative canvases like Miro and FigJam, and document-centric platform offerings reaching into AI, including Notion, Grammarly, and Canva. The strategic through-line is consistent: Keep all work in-app so the assistant has enough information to be helpful.
Plans, pricing, and how to use the new Goodnotes AI features
The company is rolling out two plans. Goodnotes Essentials costs $11.99 a year and adds new file formats as well as AI for Q&A and math. At $35.99 per year (or about $3 per user, per month), Goodnotes Pro brings:
- Google Calendar and OneDrive integration
- Private link sharing and collaboration
- A desktop AI bot for meeting capture and transcription
- AI-powered content suggestions
Even on Pro, there is a cap for AI use. There’s also an optional $10 per month AI Pass if you’re a heavy user, for unlimited credits — tackling one of the biggest buyer questions around generative AI: cost predictability. For Apple devices, there’s also a one-time purchase option for $35.99, which lacks cloud sync and cross-platform support.
Goodnotes continues to be cross-platform between iOS, Android, and Windows. That’s important for teams in which a designer could be sketching on a tablet with a stylus and someone else — say, a project lead — is editing the doc from a Windows laptop.
Security, governance, and what enterprises will want
Security and access are baked in, but professional buyers will review access controls, handling of data, and admin visibility. Private link sharing and collaboration are table stakes; on larger rollouts we’re usually consulted for roles and permissions, audit logs, lifecycle retention, and transparent AI data practices. Working with OneDrive and Calendar integrations facilitates integration into existing governance processes and scheduling flows, making it easier to adopt.
Generative AI’s upside in documentation-heavy roles has already been documented by industry analysts, detailing the time savings on drafting, summarizing, and formatting. Where the rubber meets the road here is in handwriting recognition accuracy, fidelity of diagram generation, and latency — how quickly the assistant can be returned to teams in a form they could potentially ship.
Market context, competitive landscape, and outlook ahead
Goodnotes has more than 25 million monthly active users, a healthy pool to tap for converting your average personal note-taker into one focused on group documents. The app’s differentiation remains its DNA as a handwriting-first tool; if it can reliably turn ink strokes and rough sketches into ordered, queryable knowledge, it feels there’s a niche the big suites still don’t truly own.
Competition is here — Microsoft, Google, and Apple are bringing AI to notes, docs, and whiteboards — and buyer budgets are consolidating. Goodnotes is betting that professionals who need to quickly hand-write notes but are used to working in a document editor would prefer an assistant smart enough to bridge the two. In theory, the new features connect those dots; next is whether they hold up in messy, high-stakes meetings where a first draft can set the tone for an entire project.
