Todoist's AI Future: Challenges, Planner Tools & Note-Taking App?

Personal Life and Background

• The conversation begins with a casual discussion about the speaker's personal life, mentioning that their family members have been sick, but they haven't gotten sick themselves (13s).
• The speaker shares their experience growing up in Northern Europe, where the weather can be unpredictable, and it's not uncommon to get sick even during the summer (54s).

Todoist and 2024 Overview

• The conversation shifts to the topic of Todoist, with the speaker mentioning that the team has been busy with various undertakings, including the evolution of AI space (1m20s).
• The speaker reflects on the year 2024, stating that it has been a big year for Todoist, with significant releases such as team workspaces, which marks their entrance into the B2B space (1m50s).
• The introduction of team workspaces is expected to generate more revenue, which can benefit both B2B and B2C markets, allowing Todoist to be less aggressive with pricing in the B2C space (2m11s).
• The speaker expresses excitement about the potential for Todoist to succeed in both B2B and B2C markets without compromising on features or pricing (2m44s).

Key Features and Improvements

• The implementation of calendar support is mentioned as a significant achievement, particularly on mobile devices, requiring changes to models and backend systems (3m6s).
• The speaker highlights the reduction of Todoist's backlog from 2,000 to 200 issues, which has improved the stability and speed of the platform (3m36s).
• Todoist's Workspaces feature was one of the most requested features, as users wanted to better organize their work and personal life, and it was released this year (3m54s).
• The company takes time to think through new features and their impact on productivity, which may result in slower feature releases, but with more well-thought-out features (4m23s).

Technical Debt and Future Features

• Addressing technical debt will allow for more features, but the focus remains on improving core aspects of Todoist and making it better, rather than adding flashy features (4m38s).
• The company aims to improve core aspects, such as the search engine, activity log, and attachments, to make them 10 times better before introducing new features (5m29s).
• New features, such as a habit tracker or note-taking app, may be introduced, but the company is careful about what to add and how it fits into the bigger picture (6m9s).
• The company balances customer requests with what is actually useful for users, to avoid bloating the app with unnecessary features (7m4s).

Calendar Integration and Time Blocking

• The task management space is seeing a trend of calendar apps adding tasks or task apps adding calendars, and Todoist will continue to evolve with this trend, having already added a calendar feature (7m23s).
• Todoist aims to be more than just a task management app, with ambitions to have the best calendar support and integrate it into everything, making it a core feature (7m45s).
• The company is currently rewriting the web calendar to support more events, tasks, and features like continuous scroll, improving it beyond the current version (8m21s).
• Time blocking has been added to Todoist, and it makes sense for weekly planning, allowing users to allocate time and work on tasks while considering upcoming events (8m51s).
• Todoist is entering the planner app space in a big way, excited about the possibilities and the added layer of functionality that time blocking brings (9m42s).

AI Integration and Future of Productivity

• Artificial intelligence is becoming more prevalent in task management, and Todoist is integrating deeply with Apple intelligence, which will be showcased in iOS 18 (11m15s).
• The company is thinking about how to utilize AI in the next five years, but it's challenging to make long-term predictions due to the rapidly evolving nature of the technology (10m51s).
• Todoist's approach to AI is focused on integrating it deeply into the app, rather than just adding it as a feature, and the company is exploring ways to leverage AI to improve task management (11m9s).
• Todoist is building a system that integrates with other apps on a system level, allowing for advanced workflows and intelligent features that understand context, with the potential for context-aware actions within the app (11m40s).
• The first level of integration involves deep integration with other apps, while the second level involves utilizing large language models (LLMs) like Meta's models, which are being made free and can be integrated into the app to empower features (12m38s).
• The use of LLMs can make intelligent features a commodity, allowing for the integration of AI into almost any feature at a relatively low cost, especially with the use of on-device AI chips like Apple's AI chips (13m28s).
• This integration can enable features like a personalized Siri-like assistant within the app, optimized for tasks like productivity and planning, which can be trained on knowledge and implemented at a relatively low cost (14m10s).
• The third stage of development involves the use of real-time audio models, which are approaching the ability to respond in under 300 milliseconds, making interactions more natural and conversational (14m52s).
• The current models require sending audio to a service for transcription before feeding it to the model, but real-time audio models could change this process (15m25s).
• Apple's AI chips could potentially be used for on-device AI processing, but Apple's restrictions might limit this possibility, and cloud-based processing could be used as an alternative (13m42s).
• The integration of AI in productivity tools like Todoist could revolutionize the way people interact with these tools, making voice commands more critical and allowing for more natural conversations with the AI model (15m36s).
• AI models can understand visuals and context, enabling them to generate visuals and provide more personalized assistance, which could lead to a whole different interface for productivity tools (15m59s).
• The future of productivity tools may involve AI-powered experts that can guide users through tasks and provide personalized advice, making the experience feel like conversing with a productivity expert (16m41s).
• The integration of AI with various devices and platforms, such as Google Play and Apple devices, could take productivity tools to the next level (16m58s).
• AI may be able to automate administrative tasks, such as organizing and prioritizing tasks, freeing up time for users, but it's unclear how much automation users will want (17m18s).
• While AI can assist with planning and generating tasks, it's uncertain whether users will want a system that tells them what to do, and experimentation is needed to find the right balance (18m0s).
• AI can help users filter and prioritize tasks, reducing feelings of overwhelm and providing guidance, but it's still early days for AI adoption in productivity tools (18m50s).
• The current state of AI adoption in productivity tools is at the beginning of the S-curve, and most apps and platforms have not yet figured out how to effectively integrate AI (19m18s).

Task Management and Knowledge Management

• Task management is a challenging area due to its priority-oriented and individualized nature, making it harder to organize compared to notes or calendars, which can be organized by context (19m31s).
• There is an opportunity to help solve task management problems, and a note-taking app could be a potential solution (19m58s).
• Building a note-taking app is something that could be considered, but it would require careful planning and execution (20m7s).
• A potential area of focus could be knowledge management, which is currently a messy and broken process, especially at the company or team level (20m52s).
• A powerful language model (LLM) could be used to connect, organize, and maintain knowledge, making it easier to find and share information (21m34s).
• The main challenge is that the company is already spread thin, working on task management, calendar management, team communication, and other areas, making it difficult to tackle knowledge management as well (22m11s).

Community and Future Outlook

• Despite the challenges, the company is grateful for its customers and users and is committed to listening to their feedback and implementing changes to improve the service (22m46s).
• The company's goal is to continue improving and serving its growing user base, taking their needs and feedback seriously (23m21s).
• The community and Francesco are appreciated for their contributions and involvement over the years (23m33s).
• The first conversation between the speaker and Francesco took place 10 years ago, with the speaker being in their university dorm room and Francesco being at home during a thunderstorm (23m43s).
• A video recording of this first conversation exists, in which Francesco mentioned the thunderstorm (23m51s).
• The speaker is excited about the future and what Todoist and Twist will bring in 2025 (24m12s).