I Finally Gave Google NotebookLM a Shot: Here How to Use It

By Uttam Maurya

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When Google launched NotebookLM in 2023, it was limited to only a few countries and was not yet available in India and other parts of the world. In June, Google extended its availability in more than 200 countries around the world. Now you can use NotebookLM for free in almost all regions with no restrictions on key features. It’s still labeled as experimental, but Google is continually improving NotebookLM and I love the new additions.

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First of all, Google calls NotebookLM an “AI-powered research and writing assistant,” but it’s much more than that. You can upload different file types, including PDFs, Google Docs, Google Slides, TXT, and Markdown. Plus, it lets you enter URLs to fetch content directly from the internet or paste text into the source page.

You can add up to 50 sources in a single notebook. By the way, none of your uploaded files are used to train Google’s Gemini AI.

notebookLM AI tool

NotebookLM, based on Google’s flagship Gemini 1.5 Pro, analyzes all your local documents and becomes an expert on the material you provide. NotebookLM lets you create a personalized AI chatbot that generates relevant answers from your notes and documents.

For students and researchers, NotebookLM is an incredible AI tool because it allows you to generate new ideas and find information from multiple sources in no time.

What I like about NotebookLM is that it adds inline citations to quickly find the reference passage in a document. Additionally, since Gemini 1.5 Pro is a multimodal model, it can also analyze images, charts, and graphs from your local sources, inferring meaning from both visual and textual data. I wish this feature was available in Gemini Gems, but for now, you can use NotebookLM.

In addition to this, Google recently added an “Audio Preview” feature for NotebookLM that creates an in-depth podcast-style discussion on documents uploaded using AI-generated hosts. I found it exceptionally good and natural to understand key topics as if I were listening to a podcast on my notes.

How to use Google’s NotebookLM

So, if you’re interested in Google’s NotebookLM AI tool, here’s how you can use it.

  • Go to notebooklm.google.com (visit) and sign in with your Google account.
  • You do not need a Gemini Advanced subscription to access NotebookLM. Now click on “New Notebook”.
I Finally Tried Google's NotebookLM; Here's How to Use It
  • On the sources page, you can upload your files, connect your documents from Google Drive, or paste a URL to fetch content.
download source on notebooklm
  • Now NotebookLM will analyze your documents and provide a summary.
notebookLM AI tool
  • Now you can start chatting with your documents. In each reply, he adds quotes from your notes.
chat in notebooklm
  • You can also create an FAQ, study guide, backgrounder, table of contents, and timeline.
FAQ generated by notebooklm
  • Better yet, you can generate a podcast-like audio conversation using two AI hosts discussing your uploaded content.
generate ai podcast on notebooklm

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