Notion Details Security-First Approach to Building Custom Agents
SAN FRANCISCO — Notion has published a deep dive into the security architecture behind its Custom Agents feature, outlining the principles and technical safeguards it implemented to protect enterprise data while enabling powerful AI automation. The company’s engineering and security teams collaborated closely on the project, resulting in agents now actively used by Notion’s own security staff for tasks such as triaging alerts and automating AppSec workflows.
In the blog post titled “How we built security into Custom Agents,” Notion product and engineering leaders explain that security was embedded from the earliest design stages rather than added as an afterthought. The team established a set of agentic security principles intended to apply across Notion’s AI products, from code-generation agents to conversational features. These principles were designed to remain largely invisible to end users while providing strong protections by default.
The announcement highlights several concrete outcomes of the security-by-design process. Notably, Notion’s internal security team has become one of the most active users of the Custom Agents platform. They developed an agent named “Scruff” that automatically triages and enriches security alerts. The team is also leveraging agents for application security automation, generating code fixes, and conducting adversarial testing. According to the post, this level of internal adoption demonstrates the success of the collaboration between the AI product team and the security organization.
Notion’s approach reflects a broader industry trend of companies treating security as a foundational requirement for agentic AI systems. Similar efforts have been detailed recently by other major players, including GitHub’s publication of its own “agentic security principles” for securing AI agents and Palo Alto Networks’ emphasis on runtime protection and AI red teaming for agentic workflows. Notion’s focus on making security intuitive and applicable to both new and existing AI capabilities positions its Custom Agents as enterprise-ready from launch.
The company stressed that its security architecture was built to support a wide range of use cases while maintaining strict data boundaries and minimizing risk. By involving security engineers early and often, Notion says it was able to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities before they reached production. The resulting system allows teams to build sophisticated agents without compromising on compliance or data protection standards.
Impact on Developers and Enterprises
For developers and organizations using Notion, the security-first design means they can deploy Custom Agents with greater confidence that sensitive workspace data remains protected. The internal success stories, particularly the security team’s own heavy usage, serve as a strong signal that the platform can handle high-stakes, security-sensitive tasks effectively. This may accelerate adoption among security-conscious enterprises that have been cautious about introducing autonomous AI agents into their workflows.
The approach also sets a precedent for how collaboration between AI product teams and security organizations can improve outcomes. Rather than treating security as a blocker, Notion positioned it as an enabler, resulting in tools that are both powerful and trustworthy.
What’s Next
Notion has indicated that the security principles established during this project will serve as a foundation for future AI products. While no specific new agent features or release timelines were announced in the post, the company is expected to continue expanding Custom Agents capabilities while maintaining its security standards. Enterprises interested in the platform can explore the full technical details in Notion’s official blog.
The growing emphasis on built-in security across the industry suggests that agentic AI features from major productivity platforms will increasingly compete on both capability and trustworthiness.