NotebookLM

What NotebookLM does

NotebookLM answers questions only from documents you provide, citing the specific passage behind every statement, which makes it far more trustworthy than a general assistant for working with a fixed body of material. Sources can be documents, slides, spreadsheets, web pages, videos and audio, and the notebook generates study guides, briefing summaries, timelines, mind maps and an audio overview in which synthetic hosts discuss the material. Notebooks can be shared with a team or published. It suits students working through a reading list, professionals reviewing contracts or reports, and researchers synthesising a set of papers. The limitations are boundaries and capacity: it will not bring in outside knowledge, which is the point but frustrates people expecting a general assistant, source counts and sizes are capped by plan, and the audio overview, while impressive, simplifies material more than a careful reader would.

How to use it

Go to notebooklm.google.com and sign in with a Google account; the free tier allows a reasonable number of notebooks and sources, and a paid Google AI subscription raises those limits. Create a notebook and add sources before asking anything, since an empty notebook has nothing to answer from. Upload the actual documents rather than summaries, and add links or videos where the original material lives online. Ask questions the way you would ask a research assistant, then click the citation markers to jump to the exact passage; verifying this way takes seconds and is the main reason to use the tool. Save useful answers as notes inside the notebook so they become part of your working material. Two things to know: it will decline questions that go beyond your sources, which is correct behaviour rather than a fault, and the generated audio overview is a study aid, not a substitute for reading the material.

Best for

• reading lists
• document synthesis
• study guides
• contract and report review
• team knowledge notebooks

Strengths and limitations