Research is a time-consuming task that generally involves searching for and amassing lots of information which you then need to organize and understand.
With NotebookLM, you can upload many different documents related to a topic or project and use advanced language models to digest and analyze them.
It’ll forge connections between the documents and let you ask questions, enabling you to better make sense of the information. You can create summaries in no time and ask for the data to be presented in an easily digestible podcast format.
This article was correct as of February 2025. AI tools are updated regularly and it is possible that some features have changed since this article was written. Some features may also only be available in certain countries.
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What is NotebookLM?
Developed by Google Labs and initially released in 2023, NotebookLM has the power to revolutionize how we research, understand and present great masses of information. It lets you set up individual notebooks comprising as many as 50 sources with up to 25 million words. These can be a mix of anything from Google Docs, Google Slides and web URLs to PDFs, text files and even YouTube videos and audio.
Once Google Gemini 2.0’s multimodal understanding capabilities have assessed and connected the sources, it effectively becomes an instant expert and a study buddy. You can dive in with your queries and requests as you seek to refine your ideas. What’s more, it’ll provide citations in its answers so you can double check the accuracy or delve a bit deeper within the source itself. It's best feature is its ability to create an Audio Overview of the subject at hand.
What can you use NotebookLM for?
NotebookLM is sure to be a valuable tool for high-level academic researchers and it’s also great for students or anybody who wants to research something too. Bung it a bunch of research papers and chapters from a textbook and it’ll offer clarity in the form of summaries, help you establish facts in a particular topic area or maybe produce a study guide. You can go as far as recording a lecture or an interview and getting NotebookLM to transcribe and make use of that information too.
As you can imagine, NotebookLM would also be useful for work projects and there is actually a spin-off called NotebookLM for Business which seeks to act as a central hub for teams. In some ways, it can be like having another member of staff, one who is able to help brainstorm ideas and swiftly pluck out facts and figures that can aid a conversation. You could also imagine time-pressed journalists turning to this tool – indeed, some have already started to do just that.
But perhaps the most fascinating use for NotebookLM is its ability to create a podcast of sorts based on the information you feed it. The Audio Overview feature turns documents into lively conversational discussions between a couple of AI hosts and these can help to cement ideas and themes in your head.
What can’t you use NotebookLM for?
NotebookLM won’t start browsing the web under its own steam and it won’t pull in live data. It will only deal with the information that you’ve provided so you can’t use NotebookLM to create content beyond your sources. You can’t ask questions about topics that you haven’t included either – upload a load of stuff about basketball, for instance, and you won’t get much joy out of asking about baseball. And NotepadLM only produces text and audio – it won’t generate images.
How much does NotebookLM cost?
You can get stuck into NotebookLM for free and get so much out of it. You can create summaries, FAQs, timelines, briefing docs and enjoy Audio Overviews while asking lots of questions.
If you pay for NotebookLM Plus, however, you gain five times more Audio Overviews, notebooks, queries and sources per notebook. You can also customize the style and length of notebook response and create shared notebooks and enjoy additional privacy and security (but surely that should be standard?). It’s available via the Google AI Premium Plan for $19.99/£18.99/UA$32.99 each month as well as via Google Cloud and Google Workspace.
Where can you use NotebookLM?
NotebookLM is available via a browser and there are no specific apps for phones, tablets or computers at the moment.
Is NotebookLM any good?
NotebookLM is an exceptional service and it can really help to speed up your research and organize your thoughts. It can work with an impressive number of sources and it quickly analyzes them so that you can get answers fast. But it’s the Audio Overview function which really impresses. It sounds truly amazing and, while it’s a little inflexible given an inability to edit transcripts, you’d find it very hard to tell that you’re not listening to two real people. For that feature alone, NotebookLM is definitely worth trying and exploring.
Use NotebookLM if...
You’re researching a project and need to read and consider a reasonably large number of sources.
You should also use NotebookLM if you fancy turning a topic or project into a highly-listenable, realistic-sounding podcast. There’s so much potential here to be creative.
Don’t use NotebookLM if..
You want the AI to carry out all of the research for you. The whole point of this particular service is that you identify the sources that you feel ought to be used for your project and upload them, thereby giving NotebookLM something to work with.
If you’d rather the AI trawled the web and looked for sources on your behalf, it’s best to look elsewhere.
Also consider
If AI-powered podcasting is the main attraction for you, then you should consider Jellypod which we found to be so good it actually leaves Google’s NotebookLM in the dust. For notetaking, you should explore ClickUp especially if you also want to incorporate project management and task automation.
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