diff --git a/scripts/release/relnotes.py b/scripts/release/relnotes.py
index 792816785435fc..15feff24ada134 100644
--- a/scripts/release/relnotes.py
+++ b/scripts/release/relnotes.py
@@ -14,25 +14,20 @@
 
 """Script to generate release notes."""
 
+import os
 import re
 import subprocess
-
+import sys
 import requests
 
 
-def get_last_release():
-  """Discovers the last stable release name from GitHub."""
-  response = requests.get("https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases/latest")
-  return response.url.split("/")[-1]
-
-
 def git(*args):
   """Runs git as a subprocess, and returns its stdout as a list of lines."""
   return subprocess.check_output(["git"] +
                                  list(args)).decode("utf-8").strip().split("\n")
 
 
-def extract_relnotes(commit_message_lines):
+def extract_relnotes(commit_message_lines, is_major_release):
   """Extracts relnotes from a commit message (passed in as a list of lines)."""
   relnote_lines = []
   in_relnote = False
@@ -50,14 +45,27 @@ def extract_relnotes(commit_message_lines):
       relnote_lines.append(line)
   relnote = " ".join(relnote_lines)
   relnote_lower = relnote.strip().lower().rstrip(".")
-  if relnote_lower == "n/a" or relnote_lower == "none":
-    return None
+  if relnote_lower == "n/a" or relnote_lower == "none" or not relnote_lower:
+    if is_major_release:
+      return None
+    relnote = re.sub(
+        r"\[\d+\.\d+\.\d\]\s?", "", commit_message_lines[0].strip()
+    )
+  else:
+    issue_id = re.search(
+        r"\(\#[0-9]+\)$", commit_message_lines[0].strip().split()[-1]
+    )
+    if issue_id:
+      relnote = relnote + " " + issue_id.group(0).strip()
+
   return relnote
 
 
-def get_relnotes_between(base, head):
+def get_relnotes_between(base, head, is_major_release):
   """Gets all relnotes for commits between `base` and `head`."""
-  commits = git("rev-list", f"{base}..{head}", "--grep=RELNOTES")
+  commits = git("rev-list", f"{base}..{head}")
+  if commits == [""]:
+    return []
   relnotes = []
   rolled_back_commits = set()
   # We go in reverse-chronological order, so that we can identify rollback
@@ -71,28 +79,117 @@ def get_relnotes_between(base, head):
       rolled_back_commits.add(m[1])
       # The rollback commit itself is also skipped.
       continue
-    relnote = extract_relnotes(lines)
+    relnote = extract_relnotes(lines, is_major_release)
     if relnote is not None:
       relnotes.append(relnote)
   return relnotes
 
 
+def get_label(issue_id):
+  """Get team-X label added to issue."""
+  auth = os.system(
+      "gsutil cat"
+      " gs://bazel-trusted-encrypted-secrets/github-trusted-token.enc |"
+      " gcloud kms decrypt --project bazel-public --location global"
+      " --keyring buildkite --key github-trusted-token --ciphertext-file"
+      " - --plaintext-file -"
+  )
+  headers = {
+      "Authorization": "Bearer " + auth,
+      "Accept": "application/vnd.github+json",
+  }
+  response = requests.get(
+      "https://api.github.com/repos/bazelbuild/bazel/issues/"
+      + issue_id + "/labels", headers=headers,
+  )
+  for item in response.json():
+    for key, value in item.items():
+      if key == "name" and "team-" in value:
+        return value.strip()
+  return None
+
+
+def get_categorized_relnotes(filtered_notes):
+  """Sort release notes by category."""
+  categorized_relnotes = {}
+  for relnote in filtered_notes:
+    issue_id = re.search(r"\(\#[0-9]+\)$", relnote.strip().split()[-1])
+    category = None
+    if issue_id:
+      category = get_label(re.sub(r"\(|\#|\)", "", issue_id.group(0).strip()))
+
+    if category is None:
+      category = "General"
+    else:
+      category = re.sub("team-", "", category)
+
+    try:
+      categorized_relnotes[category].append(relnote)
+    except KeyError:
+      categorized_relnotes[category] = [relnote]
+
+  return dict(sorted(categorized_relnotes.items()))
+
+
+def get_external_authors_between(base, head):
+  """Gets all external authors for commits between `base` and `head`."""
+
+  # Get all authors
+  authors = git("log", f"{base}..{head}", "--format=%aN|%aE")
+  authors = set(
+      author.partition("|")[0].rstrip()
+      for author in authors
+      if not (author.endswith(("@google.com", "@users.noreply.github.com")))
+  )
+
+  # Get all co-authors
+  contributors = git(
+      "log", f"{base}..{head}", "--format=%(trailers:key=Co-authored-by)"
+  )
+
+  coauthors = []
+  for coauthor in contributors:
+    if coauthor and not re.search(
+        "@google.com|@users.noreply.github.com", coauthor
+    ):
+      coauthors.append(
+          " ".join(re.sub(r"Co-authored-by: |<.*?>", "", coauthor).split())
+      )
+  return ", ".join(sorted(authors.union(coauthors), key=str.casefold))
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
-  # Get the last stable release.
-  last_release = get_last_release()
-  print("last_release is", last_release)
-  git("fetch", "origin", f"refs/tags/{last_release}:refs/tags/{last_release}")
+  # Get last release and make sure it's consistent with current X.Y.Z release
+  # e.g. if current_release is 5.3.3, last_release should be 5.3.2 even if
+  # latest release is 6.1.1
+  current_release = git("rev-parse", "--abbrev-ref", "HEAD")
+  current_release = re.sub(
+      r"rc\d", "", current_release[0].removeprefix("release-")
+  )
+
+  is_major = bool(re.fullmatch(r"\d+.0.0", current_release))
+
+  tags = [tag for tag in git("tag", "--sort=refname") if "pre" not in tag]
+  if current_release not in tags:
+    tags.append(current_release)
+    tags.sort()
+    last_release = tags[tags.index(current_release) - 1]
+  else:
+    print("Error: release tag already exists")
+    sys.exit(1)
 
   # Assuming HEAD is on the current (to-be-released) release, find the merge
   # base with the last release so that we know which commits to generate notes
   # for.
   merge_base = git("merge-base", "HEAD", last_release)[0]
-  print("merge base with", last_release, "is", merge_base)
+  print("Baseline: ", merge_base)
 
   # Generate notes for all commits from last branch cut to HEAD, but filter out
   # any identical notes from the previous release branch.
-  cur_release_relnotes = get_relnotes_between(merge_base, "HEAD")
-  last_release_relnotes = set(get_relnotes_between(merge_base, last_release))
+  cur_release_relnotes = get_relnotes_between(merge_base, "HEAD", is_major)
+  last_release_relnotes = set(
+      get_relnotes_between(merge_base, last_release, is_major)
+  )
   filtered_relnotes = [
       note for note in cur_release_relnotes if note not in last_release_relnotes
   ]
@@ -100,6 +197,22 @@ def get_relnotes_between(base, head):
   # Reverse so that the notes are in chronological order.
   filtered_relnotes.reverse()
   print()
+  print("Release Notes:")
+
+  if len(sys.argv) >= 2 and sys.argv[1] == "sort":
+    print()
+    categorized_release_notes = get_categorized_relnotes(filtered_relnotes)
+    for label in categorized_release_notes:
+      print(label + ":")
+      for note in categorized_release_notes[label]:
+        print("+", note)
+      print()
+  else:
+    for note in filtered_relnotes:
+      print("+", note)
+
   print()
-  for note in filtered_relnotes:
-    print("*", note)
+  print("Acknowledgements:")
+  external_authors = get_external_authors_between(merge_base, "HEAD")
+  print("This release contains contributions from many people at Google" +
+        ("." if not external_authors else f", as well as {external_authors}."))
diff --git a/scripts/release/relnotes.sh b/scripts/release/relnotes.sh
index 8e2986affcde82..9ad785a752eb49 100755
--- a/scripts/release/relnotes.sh
+++ b/scripts/release/relnotes.sh
@@ -270,50 +270,52 @@ function generate_release_message() {
   local release_name="$1"
   local branch="${2:-HEAD}"
   local delimiter="${3-}"
-  local baseline="$(get_release_baseline "${branch}")"
-  local cherrypicks="$(get_cherrypicks "${branch}" "${baseline}")"
 
   get_release_title "$release_name"
   echo
 
-  if [ -n "${delimiter}" ]; then
-    echo "${delimiter}"
-  fi
-  __create_revision_information $baseline $cherrypicks
-  if [ -n "${delimiter}" ]; then
-    echo "${delimiter}"
-  fi
-
-  echo
+  if [[ "$(is_rolling_release)" -eq 0 ]]; then
+    if [ -n "${delimiter}" ]; then
+      echo "${delimiter}"
+    fi
+    python3 ${RELNOTES_SCRIPT_DIR}/relnotes.py
+    if [ -n "${delimiter}" ]; then
+      echo "${delimiter}"
+    fi
+  else
+    local baseline="$(get_release_baseline "${branch}")"
+    local cherrypicks="$(get_cherrypicks "${branch}" "${baseline}")"
 
-  # Generate the release notes
-  local tmpfile=$(mktemp --tmpdir relnotes-XXXXXXXX)
-  trap "rm -f ${tmpfile}" EXIT
+    if [ -n "${delimiter}" ]; then
+      echo "${delimiter}"
+    fi
+    __create_revision_information $baseline $cherrypicks
+    if [ -n "${delimiter}" ]; then
+      echo "${delimiter}"
+    fi
 
-  # Save the changelog so we compute the relnotes against HEAD.
-  git show master:CHANGELOG.md > "${tmpfile}"
+    echo
 
-  local relnotes="$(create_release_notes "${tmpfile}" "${baseline}" ${cherrypicks})"
-  echo "${relnotes}" > "${tmpfile}"
+    # Generate the release notes
+    local tmpfile=$(mktemp --tmpdir relnotes-XXXXXXXX)
+    trap "rm -f ${tmpfile}" EXIT
 
-  __release_note_processor "${tmpfile}" || return 1
-  relnotes="$(cat ${tmpfile})"
+    # Save the changelog so we compute the relnotes against HEAD.
+    git show master:CHANGELOG.md > "${tmpfile}"
 
-  cat "${tmpfile}"
-}
+    local relnotes="$(create_release_notes "${tmpfile}" "${baseline}" ${cherrypicks})"
+    echo "${relnotes}" > "${tmpfile}"
 
-# Returns the release notes for the CHANGELOG.md taken from either from
-# the notes for a release candidate/rolling release, or from the commit message for a
-# full release.
-function get_full_release_notes() {
-  local release_name="$(get_full_release_name "$@")"
+    __release_note_processor "${tmpfile}" || return 1
+    relnotes="$(cat ${tmpfile})"
 
-  if [[ "${release_name}" =~ rc[0-9]+$ ]] || [[ "$(is_rolling_release)" -eq 1 ]]; then
-    # Release candidate or rolling release -> generate from the notes
-    generate_release_message "${release_name}" "$@"
-  else
-    # Full LTS release -> return the commit message
-    git_commit_msg "$@"
+    cat "${tmpfile}"
   fi
 }
 
+# Returns the release notes for the CHANGELOG.md for all releases -
+# release candidate, full release, and rolling release.
+function get_full_release_notes() {
+  local release_name="$(get_full_release_name "$@")"
+  generate_release_message "${release_name}" "$@"
+}
\ No newline at end of file