Google’s NotebookLM lets you experiment with an AI-powered chat system centered around the sources you select. The tool leverages Google Gemini, a powerful AI system, to not only generate chat responses based on your sources, but also to help you organize and explore the content within them.
For example, you can add multiple lines to a notebook and then use NotebookLM to generate a personalized study guide based on a specific selection of those notes.
In September 2024, NotebookLM added an option to create an audio overview, which generates a podcast-style conversation drawn from your sources. This combination of AI tools, including features related to chat and notes, makes NotebookLM one of the most effective tools for exploring ideas found in a specific set of sources.
NotebookLM users must:
- Be at least 18 years old.
- I have a Google account.
- Be in one of the 180 regions where the Gemini API is available.
NotebookLM is free to use, and Google doesn't use your data to train it. However, NotebookLM is experimental, and like most AI services, it can sometimes provide incorrect information. Here are five key features of Google's NotebookLM (as of September 2024). Visit NotebookLM and sign in with a Google account to get started.
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How do I use Google NotebookLM?
While Google emphasizes chat and other AI-powered features of NotebookLM, the ability to work with notes alongside sources can also prove useful. You also have the ability to create an audio overview, which provides a different way to process your content.
Add sources
After you create a new notebook and give it a name, you can add up to 50 sources. These sources can include a variety of content, such as Google Docs, Google Slides, text, PDFs, and web links. However, each source must not be longer than 500,000 words. To put that into context, that's almost the combined word count of all three of J.R.R. Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings” books. So file length probably won't be an issue for most business or school uses.
Additionally, NotebookLM includes image understanding, meaning it can process and analyze information in images included in your sources.
Access a summary of the source
Select any source from the list on the left side and NotebookLM will display two AI-generated sections (a summary and key themes) about the source’s content. The summary seeks to capture the source’s core concepts in several sentences. In contrast, key themes can be viewed as automatically generated prompts: select a key theme from the list and NotebookLM will start a new chat. For example, a click on a “Collaborative Tools” key theme starts a chat with a “Discuss Collaborative Tools” prompt.
Chat with your sources
NotebookLM generates chat responses based on your sources, making it an effective tool for querying a collection of documents, slides, and links. Ask a question and the generated response can include information from your sources, with numbered citations in the response linking directly to related content.
Not sure what to ask? Select any of the suggestions that appear above the question box. Want to edit an answer for later use? Select the copy button at the bottom left and then paste the answer into any standard text field elsewhere—but note that citations are omitted when you copy and paste an answer this way. You can also save an answer to a note.
Taking notes
There are two ways to add notes in NotebookLM:
- To create a new note manually, select the “Add Note” icon and then add your text. Once saved, you can select and subsequently edit the title and content of any manually created note.
- To save any AI-generated chat response to a note, select the “Save to Note” button in the bottom corner of a chat response. Notes created from an AI chat response can be selected and viewed later, but the system will not allow you to edit the content generated in the note.
Creating and managing notes alongside source content offers a feature that can be useful for many students, writers, and researchers. Select the checkbox in the top right corner of one or more notes and NotebookLM will display text buttons with actions that can be performed on the notes.
Note action buttons can:
- Summarize the selected notes.
- Suggest related ideas.
- Create a study guide.
- Create an outline.
- Combine selected notes into a single note.
Generate guides, even audio!
The NotebookLM Guide option, located at the bottom right of the screen, provides access to a summary of all sources, along with options to generate various types of documents or an audio overview of your sources. The types of documents that NotebookLM can create are similar to the Notes actions: FAQ, Study Guide, Table of Contents, Timeline, and Briefing Paper. When you select one of these, the system generates a new note containing the requested type of content.
Select the “audio overview” option to have the system create a podcast-style discussion with simulated voices about your content. The overview may take a while to generate. After requesting it, you can close your browser and continue with other tasks. Even when the audio overview is ready, it takes a little time for the generated audio to load. The generated audio does an impressive job of depicting the hosts conversing about their content.
The audio overview selectively focuses on parts of your content. Think of it as a small sample of your sources rather than comprehensive coverage of every detail. For example, in one of my tests involving four documents and two presentations, the generated audio overview lasted over nine minutes. The conversation captured at least three major components of the content, but it also covered some minor details that a human editor would likely have missed.
