NotebookLM is too good not to try. This is what you need to know.
Joseph Maldonado/CNETAmong the countless AI tools available today, NotebookLM remains virtually unique. As a Google app that uses AI to help you work with your own source material – and only with the stuff you feed it – it’s essentially second to none. Similar tools still lack features, polish, or both, which doesn’t give this Google option an equal, at least not yet.
NotebookLM is an AI research assistant that lets you ask questions and create deliverables from the data you feed it. Unlike a typical AI chatbot, NotebookLM relies entirely on your sources, not random information from the internet or tons of questionable training data.
This use of AI is valuable and in demand. For example, Matthew McConaughey said on a podcast last year that he wanted a personal LLM that would populate all of his books, notes, and other personal information so he could ask questions and get answers without any outside influence. This is essentially what NotebookLM does.
Google first demonstrated what was then known as Project Tailwind at its 2023 I/O Developer Conference, calling it an AI-focused wearable. It was able to answer questions based on the materials uploaded to it and automatically create a study guide for the material. While impressive in its own right, it’s about as basic as NotebookLM gets today.
Since its official release in 2023, Google has packed NotebookLM with many more features, making it one of the best tools for learning and doing more with your data. It can be used in many different ways, making it flexible and appealing to almost anyone who uses it.
What is NotebookLM?
NotebookLM organizes your chaotic notes and lets you pull out specific threads of dense information. What makes NotebookLM so interesting is what it can do with your source material once it has it.
You can chat with Gemini about the material to get answers. NotebookLM can also transform your sources into unexpected end products. It can give you answers via written text or create something entirely new, like audio or video previews, slide presentations, study guides and much more. Depending on your needs and use case, NotebookLM can truly be an all-in-one AI tool.
NotebookLM is nothing without the sources you power it with, and that’s all it needs to work its magic. It treats sources as the only truth and will base all answers and results on those sources. He won’t scour the internet for answers. If your sources don’t have an answer to a question you ask, they will tell you.
For example, I asked “How much is 2 + 2?” » in a notebook containing research notes from one of my articles on ambiance coding. His response: “The sources provided do not contain any information regarding mathematics or the sum of 2 plus 2.”
This is what sets NotebookLM apart. You voluntarily give guardrails to the application so that you can better trust the information sent back to you. The AI likes to lie to you when it doesn’t have the answer. NotebookLM doesn’t do this, or at least not as frequently.
Your sources can be documents, audio files, YouTube videos, web links, etc. Each time you add a new one, NotebookLM will reanalyze the entire notebook and provide a summary of the collective sources. This means that NotebookLM is only as good as you make it. Fill your notebook with bad research materials and you get bad results.
At its most basic, you can ask NotebookLM specific questions based on your sources to find answers, which is ideal if your source material is very dense and you’re trying to retrieve a very specific answer.
For example, let’s say you upload a complete ebook for a book report you’re working on for school, along with the notes you took for the class. You can ask NotebookLM to extract themes, key character motivations, and other information based on your sources. This alone is incredibly useful, but it’s only a fraction of what NotebookLM is capable of.
Who is NotebookLM for?
NotebookLM is for anyone looking to understand and make better use of their data, so there is no “best” candidate. However, given the large number of features aimed at learning, I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest school work. That said, NotebookLM can be used for work and for personal and creative purposes and projects, so it really doesn’t make sense to put any limits on it.
Common Uses of NotebookLM
School materials
Add your study notes, homework for the day, and teacher-provided materials, and you have a comprehensive resource with which you can discuss your topic. With just one click, you can create flashcards, audio or video previews, quizzes, and more to prepare for the next quiz. Not everyone learns the same way, and NotebookLM allows students to absorb knowledge on their terms with a variety of different outcomes. Flash cards? Of course. Do you prefer podcasts? You can instantly create something that you can listen to to review your notes.
The podcast-style audio presentation feature has helped NotebookLM gain popularity. The feature will allow you to create a “deep dive” of your source material with just one click, and the result is full-featured audio with two AI hosts, both of which have personality and deliver the material in an easy-to-understand manner. You can even customize what you want, the specific topic you want the hosts to talk about. Audio previews are easily one of the best features NotebookLM has to offer.
Professional work
NotebookLM can be used almost as much for work and business as it is for school, and it might come in handy for your next big meeting or presentation. Whether you need to present talking points based on a dense report or a simple way to visualize this data in the form of a chart or slideshow, it can all be done with a simple click of a button in the NotebookLM studio tab.
For example, if I’m presented with a long press release or report, I can throw it into NotebookLM and ask the chat to break down the most important aspects into a bulleted list. Then I can create a short audio preview, guiding it to do the same thing with only the important information. Finally, I can request a long, in-depth version of the audio preview, so I can dive into all the details if I want. The last step is the most important: always make sure to double-check your sources. NotebookLM is great at delivering the goods, but it doesn’t benefit from fact-checking.
Creative assistant
For your personal and creative endeavors, all of NotebookLM is at your disposal. Whether you need a writing partner or want to hear your notes, thoughts, and journals delivered to you in audio preview form, this is how you break the rules. Now that NotebookLM has Nano Banana as an image generator, you can even have it create solid visuals based on your ideas and other work that you want to understand and work with better.
One of my last surprises for a “let’s see what happens” type project was over the holidays when I called my aunt for a recipe. I recorded the call so I wouldn’t miss anything. Equipped with a short notes document and a 45 minute call recording, I added both into NotebookLM as sources to allow it to generate a proper recipe document, which it did without issue. What surprised me was what happened when I simply used the call recording as the only source and asked it to create a slideshow.
NotebookLM went to town, creating a long slideshow with a ton of personality. It wasn’t just a recipe. NotebookLM took the context of the conversation and integrated it into the slideshow. It was charming, cute and funny. Titled Aunt Carol’s Gumbo Gospel, it even featured a quote from the phone conversation, as if he knew it was perfect. “They’ll come if you have the gumbo, honey.” This is where NotebookLM can shine, in those “wildcard” moments where you don’t expect much, only to be impressed.
one of several Sldie NotebookLM created based on a phone conversation I uploaded as a source.
Google/CNETWhat are the disadvantages of NotebookLM?
NotebookLM has a lot of going for it, but it’s not without its downsides. You’re stuck with Google if you want to use it. This also means that you are also forced to only use Gemini. And while Google says the information you add to NotebookLM isn’t used to train its AI models, some may be a little apprehensive about using such a tool given how much data Google already has on you.
That said, if you’re already deeply entrenched in Google services, you may have already weighed these risks. But for the tech-savvy, there is an alternative called Open Notebook. While it’s nowhere near as simple to set up as NotebookLM Access, and it can’t match it feature for feature, it’s an overall solid alternative that puts privacy at the heart.
LM laptop prices
NotebookLM is free if you have a Google account. Most people will probably be satisfied with the capabilities of the free version. Heavy users looking for more sources per laptop and higher usage access from Gemini can subscribe to a Google One AI plan, which offers higher usage limits, priority access to features, and up to 600 sources per laptop compared to the 50 in the free version.
Final Thoughts
NotebookLM is an interesting concept to start with, and it has become such a powerful AI tool that it might be the best Gemini-powered product. It’s easy to use, but it will also reward you the more you tinker with it. There’s nothing else like it on the market right now that isn’t hampered in some way, and it gets updates and new features pretty regularly. There’s no wrong way to use it, and whatever functionality you want to give it, it could indeed be on the NotebookLM team’s to-do list.
