Notion shuts down Skiff-based email app: users chose AI agents

Notion is shutting down its own email client, developed on Skiff technologies—and names the direct cause: most beta testers were already using AI agents instead of it. The company is fundamentally shifting its strategy and betting on an agentic approach to managing incoming mail.

The Story of Skiff's Acquisition

In February 2024, Notion acquired Skiff—one of the few startups seriously challenging Google Workspace's dominance. Skiff was building a private alternative: encrypted documents, collaborative editing, cloud storage, and email with full end-to-end encryption. After the deal closed, Skiff as a standalone service ceased operations. Existing users were directed to Proton Mail as the nearest privacy-focused alternative. The development team moved to Notion and began work on integrating mail technologies into the product ecosystem. The new email client was expected to become an organic extension of the workspace: tasks, notes, databases, and mail in a single interface. The project underwent closed beta testing for several months with a limited number of participants.

What Beta Revealed

The data overturned the original hypothesis. Most participants did not open the email client regularly—and it wasn't a matter of product quality. They had already switched to AI agents for processing incoming mail. This doesn't mean the client was poor—it simply means the market shifted faster than expected. The agent handled exactly those tasks the traditional client was built for:

• sorted and prioritized incoming by context
• answered routine requests using templates without user involvement
• marked, archived, and forwarded emails according to set rules
• created Notion tasks based on email content
• generated draft responses for emails requiring attention

When an agent automatically handles most routine work, there's no reason to open a separate email UI—even if it's convenient and built into your favorite tool.

What Notion Is Building Instead

The company officially announced a course change: the traditional email client is shutting down, resources are redirected to agentic infrastructure.

"We're going all in on using agents to manage incoming mail,"

Notion's team stated.

An agentic approach means integrating on top of existing services: the agent connects to Gmail or Outlook via API, reads and processes emails in the background, and the user only sees what truly requires their decision. The agent knows the context of the Notion workspace—an incoming email can be automatically linked to the right page or task. Instead of folders and tabs—an intelligent filter, transparent to the user.

Technically, this is more complex than a proprietary client: OAuth integrations, working with third-party APIs, managing permissions and privacy. But product-wise—it's more honest: build what users actually use.

What This Means

Notion Mail is a rare example: the company rejected the product before launch because beta data showed users had already gone a different route. For the productivity tools industry, this is a signal.

AI agents are displacing specialized applications not by quality, but by the very logic of use: users no longer want to open a new interface—they want the task solved without their involvement. Startups building "smart" email clients with beautiful UX now compete not just with each other, but with the agentic layer on top of existing services. If Notion's email client didn't survive beta, one should ask: what other application categories will face pressure in the next two years?