Will AI Replace the Need for Second Brains?


Only one more week to go until the tickets for our inaugural Second Brain Summit go live on May 14th.

My team and I are working around the clock to create the best possible experience for you on October 3rd and 4th in LA.

I can't stress enough how big of a difference in-person events made in my career. People I met became pivotal collaborators or mentors. Ideas I heard in passing ended up being cornerstones of my work. Mindsets and perspectives I absorbed from thought leaders changed who I am at a deep level.

I want the Second Brain Summit to be a pivotal moment in your journey. A moment you look back on years down the line, knowing that it changed your trajectory.

I hope to see you there! Join the waitlist now to secure your spot.


"I Have Hundreds of Old Notes! What Should I Do?"

I've noticed again and again that a mountain of past notes and files keeps people stuck when they're trying to build a Second Brain.

You feel this sense of obligation to have to do something with them, to sort through them, to preserve them.

Here's my recommendation: Rip the bandaid off and wipe the slate clean.

That might mean moving to a new notetaking app (leaving all your old notes behind but still accessible) OR archiving everything in your current app and starting fresh.

I found that it’s never really worth going item by item for old notes and titling, labeling, tagging, and organizing them. You’ll likely never use them again (trust me on this).

You can start with a clean slate and still have access to your archived material, tugged away in a folder, just in case. Only move old notes out of your archive when you actually need them.


Will Artificial Intelligence Replace the Need for Second Brains Entirely?

A lot of people seem to think so. And I admittedly have a self-interested motivation to answer this question.

I need to decide whether I should continue advising people to build a Second Brain at all, or just tell them to rely on AI and save all that effort.

After many dozens of hours of experimentation, my conclusion is that AI is not going to replace the need for a Second Brain anytime soon.

Here’s why: no matter how powerful AI becomes, the data we put into it has to come from somewhere, and the AI’s outputs have to go somewhere.

A Second Brain (or whatever you want to call it) is still needed both as the repository of all those inputs and as a staging area for storing those outputs until they’re ready to be used.


Managing Ideas: A Framework for Unlocking Creativity

Michael Stelzner interviewed me on the Social Media Marketing Podcast about idea management.

We went deep into my CODE framework for reliably capturing, organizing, distilling, and expressing your ideas. And I shared concrete tips and strategies for each step.


Book Recommendation: Get Better at Anything by Scott Young

My friend, Scott Young, just published a new book – a master class really in accelerated, effective learning.

Learning that's grounded in seeing how others are succeeding; experimenting with and testing new ideas in the real world; and, most importantly, being open and receptive to the feedback that inevitably comes back.

Almost everything we do depends on learning new skills, attitudes, and behaviors.

This book is an indispensable guide to mastering that skill for a twenty-first century rocked by change and uncertainty.

Build your Second Brain

Join BASB Foundation →

🤩

Create a system for productivity

Join POP →

📚

Organize your digital life

Get the PARA Method →

Tiago Forte

Want to opt out of the newsletter or receive this email on a different email address?
Update your preferences

Want to stop receiving emails from us completely?
Unsubscribe from everything. (Use with caution!)

5318 E. 2nd St. PMB 36973, Long Beach, CA 90803

Forte Labs Newsletter

Level up your productivity and life with new essays, videos, event invites, and other resources every Tuesday. Join 125k subscribers exploring the frontier of modern work, experimenting with new ways of doing more with less, and discovering what it means to fulfill our human potential. 100% free and 100% useful!

Read more from Forte Labs Newsletter

I just published my 2025 Annual Review. This was our “Year of Profitability,” and I’m happy to report we hit that goal. But the real story is messier and more interesting than that headline suggests. YouTube became our primary sales channel, driving $1.5M from our new AI program. I launched and then stepped away from Second Brain Enterprise after realizing it wasn’t the right fit for me long-term. And I’m pivoting BASB to become AI-first in 2026. On the personal front: I became a gym rat,...

Happy New Year 🥳 I hope 2026 is off to a meaningful start for you. This week, we’re closing out our Annual Review 2026 program with over 600 participants. The feedback on my book manuscript, Life in Perspective, has been incredible, and I’ve loved seeing the breakthroughs people are sharing in our Circle community. As I continue working on the book, I’m building a collection of annual review examples to showcase the variety of formats and styles people use. If you have a favorite annual...

This is our final newsletter of 2025 🎉 a special edition to celebrate the past 12 months. Here are some of the milestones we achieved this year… Launched the official Second Brain Notion Template, which sold over 2,350 copies this year (update coming soon) Grew our Circle community to over 13k members and launched our BASB app (via Circle Plus) for easier access Ran 3x cohorts of Second Brain Enterprise and transitioned the program to the EMPOWER Labs team Started publishing videos weekly on...