Delights and insights from my new favorite AI tool: Granola.ai

We worry a lot about AI replacing humans, sometimes AI tools can just make better humans.

Earlier this Fall, I started experimenting with Granola, an AI-powered note-taking tool. Over the years, I’ve played around with a number of different AI note takers and come away not particularly convinced. Granola is different, though, and more intuitive. It’s not just a transcription app, it augments notes you’re actively taking.

During a recent on-site meeting with my organization's external team, I watched as Granola helped fill in gaps in my written notes and added context to wide-ranging conversations my team was having.

It made things easier, it allowed our team to be more creative, in the moment — and less tethered to a keyboard.

That feels like what we want from AI. A technology that liberates us from mundane tasks that slows us down and makes us better. (Although Granola does have its drawbacks — more on that in a second.) It’s also a textbook case of a tool that is strongest when we embrace the concept of AI Readiness, recognizing AI’s strengths, its most appropriate uses, and having critical thinking about when it might misfire.

Improving Human Experience

Historically speaking, note-taking has been a double edged sword. At most organizations, including my own, the “note-taker” in a meeting is often a junior team member who joins to keep track of what’s being said.

This is a bit of a double-edged sword, though. This individual, typically, is so focused on what they’re trying to capture that they can't fully participate in the conversation. They’re gaining some experience by being in the room, but not really playing a more proactive role than stenographer.

Granola changes that dynamic, offering backup. Already, I’ve seen it unlock members of my team, making them more free to engage, knowing that AI is capturing key details. This is a shift that has helped different individuals participate in different ways and overall, I think, it’s improved my team’s creative thinking.

For me personally, the shift to Granola has helped me amass the most complete and best organized meeting notes of my career.

Numbers Game: Still A Work In Progress

Of course, if we’re having a conversation about AI these days we’re also having a conversation about its limits.

For Granola, numbers are a glaring limitation. I learned this the hard way when I tried to use Granola to transcribe a Loom video that a member of my organization’s finance team prepared for a board meeting.

As I looked through the notes Granola had prepared, I quickly realized that its transcription had butchered some of the specific numbers. The tool did get broad concepts and talking points correct but butchering important figures for a board meeting would have had serious implications if I hadn’t checked.

And it wasn’t just my numbers: In talking with other users (especially venture capitalists, where Granola is making waves) numbers are a consistent challenge.

The Risk of Complacency

I’ve felt one other more insidious side effect: Complacency.

When you’re not taking notes directly, or you believe a machine will do it for you, human nature is to drift off a bit and lose focus. Or multi-task. In this sense, Granola feels reminiscent of Tesla’s self-driving car function — where fears already exist about being overly reliant on technology.

In certain meetings, I can feel myself relying on the tech to take notes and doing some other important task or trying to squeeze more in — a slack to a colleague or an email to another teammate about a different topic.

There’s a risk, in other words, in relying on technology alone, especially if hyper focusing on the task at hand is what’s most important.

A Tool That Reinforces AI Readiness

Ultimately, I’m sticking with Granola in part because it is a tool that, particularly as it evolves, evokes the promise of AI Readiness.

On the one hand, it clearly increases capacity and makes more and more effective work possible with less effort when it’s used correctly.

On the other hand, it reinforces important concepts around critical thinking, correct and incorrect use of AI technology and next level skills. Granola is stronger (crunchier?) when I pay attention to it, or use it as a way to participate more. It is weaker when I rely on it or don’t apply critical thinking to how it’s being used.