After Adding AI to Obsidian, My Knowledge System Started Working
Notes on using Obsidian to organize knowledge and connect AI with my content workflow, while exploring how saved material and notes can feed back into real tasks.
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Abin’s Notes · May 3, 2026, 18:23
For the past two weeks, I have been learning and using Obsidian in depth.
Honestly, the more I use it, the more impressed I am.
Before this, I had tried quite a few note-taking tools: Notion, Youdao Cloud Notes, Get Notes, Feishu Wiki, and others. Each had its strengths, and each helped me solve problems at different stages.
But after settling down and using Obsidian frequently for two straight weeks, I began reconsidering a question:
How many note-taking tools do we actually need?
I used to feel that more tools meant more capability.
Whenever I saw a new note-taking app, I wanted to try it. When someone recommended a template or a knowledge base system, I could not help looking into it. Over time, I collected more tools, my information became more scattered, and I ended up with another kind of inefficiency.
Some content was in Notion, some in Youdao Cloud Notes, some in Feishu, and other stray ideas were tucked away in WeChat, memo apps, and documents.
It looked as though I had accumulated plenty of “knowledge assets.” But when I actually needed them, I often could not find them, remember them, or put them to use.
That has been one of my biggest realizations recently:
Having too many note-taking tools can become a distraction.
What we really need is a stable, sustainable knowledge system that we can keep building over time, rather than a constant change of tools.
That is where Obsidian has surprised me most.
It feels like a “second brain” that can grow with you over the long term, beyond a simple place to record things.
Obsidian’s Core Strengths
Obsidian’s defining features are local storage, Markdown, links and backlinks, and a high degree of flexibility.
Local storage keeps your data in your own hands and reduces dependence on a platform. Markdown keeps the focus on the content with fewer formatting distractions. Links and backlinks let notes connect naturally instead of remaining isolated documents. Its broad plugin ecosystem also makes it highly extensible.
When I first started using Obsidian, I found it a little intimidating.
It did not feel as ready to use out of the box as some other note-taking apps, and it did not have the same flashy interface. Once I spent more time with it, though, I began to appreciate that restraint.
It brings you back to what matters most:
Capturing ideas, connecting knowledge, and making experience your own matter more than making notes look beautiful.
Three Things Obsidian Works Well For
Over these two weeks, I have gradually found Obsidian particularly well suited to a few kinds of work.
First, Recording Thoughts That Develop over Time
Many ideas begin as a sentence, a passing thought, or a fragment. If you keep recording and adding to them, they can gradually grow into an article, a method, or even a complete framework for understanding a subject.
Second, Building a Personal Knowledge Base
We are used to organizing things into folders: work, study, life, projects, reference material. But knowledge in the real world does not always follow a straight line. An idea might belong to writing, business, thinking, and management at the same time. Obsidian’s links, backlinks, and tags work well with this web of connections.
Third, Working with AI
This is the part I find most promising.
Obsidian is good for collecting and developing knowledge over time. AI is useful for extracting key points, summarizing, expanding ideas, and offering inspiration. Combining them can make working with knowledge much more efficient.
For example, I can record my original thoughts in Obsidian, then ask AI to help organize them, draw out key arguments, and develop them into an article. Or I can work in the other direction and ask AI for new ideas based on the contents of my knowledge base.
That starts to become a personal system for producing knowledge, beyond simply taking notes.
How I Plan to Combine My Tools
Of course, I do not think Obsidian can replace every other tool.
After thinking it through, I have decided to focus on two main parts, connected with AI:
Feishu Wiki + Obsidian + AI.
Feishu Wiki is better suited to team collaboration, project management, documenting processes, and sharing material with others. Its strengths are collaboration and organizational efficiency.
Obsidian is better suited to personal thinking, building knowledge, developing writing, and reflecting over time. Its strengths are flexibility, stability, and deep connections between ideas.
AI acts as an amplifier, helping me develop existing content further and put that knowledge to work.
My current view is:
You do not need a large collection of tools. The key is to use your core tools deeply, understand them well, and make them work together as a system.
I used to spend my time looking for a better note-taking app. Now I am more interested in finding a better way for knowledge to move through my work.
What Makes a Good Knowledge System?
A good knowledge system should support at least three things:
Input: recording valuable information.
Organization: turning scattered material into a structure.
Output: putting knowledge to use in communication, decisions, and action.
If we collect without organizing, record without reviewing, and consume without producing, even the best tool is just a storehouse of information.
What I want now is for my notes to become a source of practical ability.
After two weeks of using Obsidian in depth, my biggest gain was not learning a particular plugin or building an elaborate template. It was realizing this:
What matters most is the system behind the tools.
With a stable knowledge system, a person can think more clearly, communicate better, and act with a stronger sense of direction.
I will continue using Obsidian in depth and work on combining it more effectively with Feishu Wiki and AI.
Less anxiety about tools. More steady accumulation.
Less repeated tinkering. More time developing what I already have.
I believe that once this system is fully working, it will become an important foundation for my productivity for a long time to come.