Notion Ends Email After One Year. The Reason is Frightening.

Notion is shutting down its email app “Notion Mail” after just one year. The service, launched using technology acquired from Skiff, saw most users not opening the email client, instead handling tasks through AI agents. In other words, there are no longer any “readers” of emails.

In the same week, Oracle announced a reduction of approximately 21,000 employees, citing a reallocation to accelerate investments in AI infrastructure.

These two pieces of news may seem separate, but they share the same root.

The era of “tools choosing people” has already begun.

And this is not just a story for large corporations. It is particularly relevant for companies with ten employees.

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What is Happening—A Shift in Cost Structure

First, let’s clarify the facts.

The essence of Notion’s decision is the “death of UI”. The interface of email, which required “humans to look at screens and operate”, has become unnecessary due to AI agents. Users can simply instruct AI within Notion’s workspace to “reply to that email” or “summarize this week’s pending tasks”. There is no longer a reason to open the email app.

This is, upon reflection, terrifying. Email has been at the center of business for over 30 years. It has been downgraded to a “protocol operating behind AI”. This mirrors the transition from phone to SMS, and from SMS to chat, but the speed of this change is unprecedented.

Oracle’s reduction of 21,000 employees represents a structure of “reinvesting saved labor costs into AI”. Oracle’s total workforce is about 160,000, meaning the reduction rate is around 13%. The annual savings in labor costs, assuming an average salary of $100,000, amounts to approximately $2.1 billion (around 320 billion yen). This capital will be redirected towards AI infrastructure and cloud services.

In other words, for large corporations, “reducing people and increasing AI” has become not just a restructuring move, but the mainstream of corporate strategy.

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What Changes for Small and Medium Enterprises

Now we get to the main point.

If a CEO sees the news of 20,000 job cuts at a large corporation and thinks, “this doesn’t concern us”, they are mistaken. It is precisely the companies with ten employees that will feel the impact of this wave most acutely.

Why? Because three structural changes are happening simultaneously.

1. The Cost of Hiring Specialized Talent Has Been Exceeded by the Cost of Relying on AI

Take design, for example. Figma recently updated to include AI-generated animations and code layer features. Previously, designers would create in Figma, engineers would convert it to code, and animations were made in separate specialized tools. Now, the process is moving towards being completed by one person plus AI.

Outsourcing a landing page (LP) can cost between 300,000 to 800,000 yen for design and coding. Using AI tools, an in-house staff member can shape it in just a few hours. The cost is only the monthly subscription fee. A world where 800,000 yen becomes 20,000 yen per month is on the horizon.

The same is happening across accounting, customer support, recruitment, and marketing.

2. The Choice of Tools Has Become More Important Than the Choice of Talent

The case of Notion is emblematic. Notion did not simply add a feature to “send emails” but instead abandoned email altogether and fully embraced AI agents.

This question is now being posed to small and medium enterprises as well.

“Are the tools we are currently using really necessary?”

Many small and medium enterprises use more than ten tools, including email, chat, task management, file sharing, accounting software, and CRM. The total monthly cost ranges from 5,000 to 10,000 yen per person. For ten employees, that amounts to 50,000 to 100,000 yen per month, or 600,000 to 1,200,000 yen per year.

Moreover, as the number of tools increases, problems such as “not knowing where anything is”, “increased data entry tasks”, and “personalized tool integration” grow.

With the proliferation of AI agents, the correct approach will be to reduce the number of tools and integrate with AI. Platforms like Notion, Slack, and Microsoft Copilot will operate multiple services via AI in the background.

What small and medium enterprises should consider is not “which AI tool to adopt” but rather “which platform to align with”.

3. The Jobs That Large Corporations Have Let Go Will Become Weapons for Small and Medium Enterprises

Oracle is cutting 21,000 jobs. Other large corporations are accelerating similar moves. The tasks that can be automated by AI will be replaced on a larger scale in large corporations.

However, there are clearly areas where AI struggles. “Building relationships with customers in front of you”, “making decisions based on local context”, and “grasping subtle nuances occurring on-site”—these are areas where small and medium enterprises have a significant advantage.

As large corporations replace jobs with AI, customer interactions become standardized. The value of having “a person to respond” becomes increasingly prominent. However, to create that “time for a person to respond”, back-office tasks should be delegated to AI.

Utilize the time saved through AI efficiency for tasks that only humans can perform. This is the winning strategy for small and medium enterprises.

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Three Actions Companies of Ten Should Take Now

Having discussed the abstract, let’s get specific about what to do.

[Action 1] Inventory Tools and Narrow Down to Three or Fewer

List all the SaaS and tools currently in use. Create a summary of monthly costs, usage frequency, and who is using them. This should take less than an hour.

Then, choose one platform with AI agent capabilities and start consolidating operations there. Realistic options include Notion, Google Workspace + Gemini, or Microsoft 365 + Copilot.

As a guideline, use whether you can reduce monthly tool costs to less than half of what they are now as a benchmark. For a company of ten, this could mean annual savings of 300,000 to 600,000 yen. Investing the saved money into paid plans for AI tools will yield greater returns.

[Action 2] Replace One “Routine Task Taking More Than Five Hours a Week” with AI

Trying to do everything at once can lead to failure. Start with just one task.

Candidates include “creating meeting minutes”, “processing invoices”, “drafting social media posts”, “initial responses to inquiries”, or “aggregating daily or weekly reports”.

If a task that takes five hours a week can be reduced to one hour with AI, that creates 16 hours of free time per month. At an hourly rate of 2,000 yen, that’s worth 32,000 yen a month, or 384,000 yen a year. And this is just for one person. If three people in a company of ten were doing this, it would amount to 1,150,000 yen a year.

Start with just one. From next week.

[Action 3] Redefine “Work That Should Be Done by Humans”

After delegating tasks to AI, what will you do with the freed-up time? If this isn’t decided, it will end up as “feeling somewhat relieved”.

The strength of small and medium enterprises lies in their “closeness to customers”. Use the freed-up time for visiting existing customers, building relationships with new customers, and improving operations on-site.

As large corporations standardize with AI, the evaluation of “that company has real people looking after us” will increasingly gain value. This is a position that only small and medium enterprises can occupy.

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Only Those Who Wonder “Is This Enough?” Can Take Action

Notion has discarded email. Oracle has cut 21,000 jobs. Figma has blurred the lines between designers and engineers.

These are not just stories from the tech industry. As the costs and capabilities of tools dramatically change, the structure of work across all industries will change.

Manufacturing, construction, retail, and professional services in local areas cannot remain unaffected.

The question is simple.

“Are there tasks in your current operations that can be left to AI?”

The longer you leave them unattended, the wider the gap will grow between you and your competitors. Conversely, because you are a company of ten, you can take action starting next week. There’s no need for approvals or groundwork. If the CEO says, “Let’s do it”, changes can happen the next day.

That is the greatest weapon of small and medium enterprises. While large corporations take months to adjust 20,000 jobs, a company of ten can operate under a new system starting next week.

Speed is something that cannot be bought with money.