​Startups AMA: Building & Shipping AI Products with Notion & Vercel

​If you're a CTO, technical founder, builder, or engineer (or you're aiming to become one) and you're thinking about what it takes to build and ship AI products for the future, this evening is for you.

​We're bringing together two of the most interesting companies in the AI builder stack — Notion and Vercel — for a candid, technical-leaning evening in Melbourne.

​Part 1 — AMA with Sarah Sachs, AI Lead at Notion

​Dan from Squarepeg sits down with Sarah for a focused, no-fluff conversation on the realities of shipping AI in product: what to prioritise, what to cut, how to iterate safely, and how to build systems that hold up beyond the demo.

​The core focus: how Sarah and the team build and ship AI at Notion — and what makes their approach to product-building feel distinct when the problem space is fast-moving and ambiguous.

​What we'll dig into:

• ​What it actually takes to ship AI features that users trust (not just prototypes)

• ​How Notion approaches product thinking + engineering execution for AI

• ​Iteration loops: evaluation, feedback, and continuous improvement in real product

• ​Tradeoffs builders face: UX vs. model behaviour, latency, reliability, cost, and safety

• ​How to structure teams and decision-making to keep shipping momentum

• ​Live audience Q&A — bring your hardest questions

​Part 2 — Builder Showcase with Allison Arnaud, Startup Growth at Vercel

​Allison takes the floor for a live look at how startups are building and deploying with Vercel today — including a look at how Notion itself uses Vercel's Sandbox environment to power Notion Workers. If you're building AI-native products and thinking about your deployment stack, this is the session to pay attention to.

​Who it's for

• ​CTOs / Heads of Engineering

• ​Technical founders

• ​Builders and product-minded engineers

• ​Developers building AI features, workflows, or AI-native products

• ​A limited number of enterprise customers who want a builder-level view of AI shipping

​Spots are limited (approval required)

​To keep the discussion high-signal and interactive, registration is subject to approval.

​About the speakers

​Sarah Sachs, AI Lead, Notion

​Sarah leads AI product development at Notion, one of the most widely used productivity tools in the world. She's on the front line of shipping AI features that millions of teams depend on every day.

​Allison Arnaud, Startups @ Vercel

​Allison helps grow startups at Vercel. He is a former electrical engineer and software developer.

​Dan Krasnostein, Partner, Square Peg (Moderator) Dan is a Partner at Square Peg, one of Australia's leading VC firms backing early-stage tech. He leads Square Peg's Australian investment team and has backed some of the fastest-growing startups across APAC. He's spent over a decade on the front lines of the startup ecosystem and knows exactly what questions founders and builders actually need answered.

​About Notion

​Notion is the AI workspace that brings docs, projects, and team knowledge into one connected place — so startups can move faster with less busywork. With AI and agents built in, teams can summarise meetings into decisions and action items, draft first-pass docs using workspace context, and automate repeatable ops work.

​In Melbourne, companies like Heidi, Linktree, Everlab, and me&u use Notion to run projects, keep teams aligned, and scale how they work as they grow.

​About Vercel

​Vercel is the AI Cloud for developers — providing the tools and infrastructure to build, scale, and secure the next generation of web applications. Creators of Next.js, v0, and AI SDK, Vercel powers some of the world's most demanding products. Customers like OpenAI, PayPal, and Ramp build for the AI-native web on Vercel's platform, which emphasises ultra-low latency, enterprise-grade security, and open-standard technologies.

​About Square Peg

​Square Peg is a venture capital firm that helps founders from our corner of the world shape the future. Founded in 2012 in Australia, Square Peg combines the best of a local partner with a global network of companies, and now backs founders early and repeatedly across APAC’s fastest-growing technology markets. With more than US$4.3 billion in assets across its venture capital and public equities funds, Square Peg is the only investor to have backed all three of Australia's highest-valued private tech companies - Canva, Airwallex, and Rokt. Learn more at squarepeg.vc.