NotebookLM is the most interesting consumer AI product currently available, period, full stop.

Don’t look away. This is not just for nerds. NotebookLM is also potentially the most useful AI assistant for you – yes, I’m looking at you, you special snowflake. It is unique and special and better than ChatGPT or the other general purpose AIs for certain kinds of projects.

Google has added new features to NotebookLM in the last few weeks. Let me give you an overview of the core features of NotebookLM, then tell you what’s new.

NotebookLM is a source-grounded AI research assistant from Google.

It is an AI assistant that limits its answers to information in files and websites that you have chosen, instead of pulling from the good, the bad, and the weird of general internet knowledge. You create a notebook with PDFs, web links, YouTube videos, and Google Docs. NotebookLM analyzes only those sources when it answers questions. By definition it does not hallucinate or make anything up. It provides citations and links to the sources for everything it says.

There is nothing like it for students, researchers, journalists, lawyers, the business world, and anyone who needs accurate insights from specific sources. Steven Johnson, Editorial Director at NotebookLM, says the team aims for the “intersection point of the newly magical and the actually useful.” I’m resistant to hype but this is exactly the way I feel about NotebookLM.

NotebookLM is free. You’ll log in with your Google account. If you pay for a Google AI Pro subscription ($19.99/month), you can track more notebooks, add more sources, use various features more frequently, and customize this and that – worth it for heavy users, professionals, and students.

Free Google AI Pro plans for students  Google is offering one year of Google AI Pro to students for free. Every student should click on this link and take advantage of this deal, available only through October 6, 2025. Expanded use of Google Gemini and NotebookLM, plus expanded storage space in Google Drive, free, such a deal!

Here’s an example of how I use NotebookLM when I write these articles.

I created a NotebookLM notebook with fourteen sources for my article about the early publication history of The Lord Of The Rings. The sources include Wikipedia’s article about the books’ literary reception, Reddit discussions, and articles about various aspects of the LOTR paperbacks and art.

In my LOTR notebook I can get a briefing doc with a single click that summarizes everything in the sources in about a thousand words – main themes and ideas, key facts. Another click produces a detailed timeline starting in 1937 with the first publication of The Hobbit.

And I can ask any specific question that would otherwise require poring over all the sources and bouncing through Chrome tabs in the manner that has been second nature for the last ten years. If I ask, “How many editions included emus on the cover?”, lots of details come back, each one with a link to the specific line in specific sources.

NotebookLM allows notebooks to be shared publicly. You can view my Lord Of The Rings notebook here. Open it up and ask questions, listen to a podcast, prepare a briefing doc, or look at the timeline to get a sense of what NotebookLM can do.

PRO TIP: I installed an extension in Chrome to add webpages to a notebook with a single click. After comparing a few, I settled on WebSync full site importer for NotebookLM. My needs are simple; your mileage may vary.

I’ll list some examples of how people use NotebookLM but it’s so open-ended that you may easily be able to imagine other ways it would help you.

STUDENTS A history student preparing for an exam might upload lecture notes, textbook chapters, and historical documents, then get a timeline, a quiz with questions and answers, summaries from historians with notes about where their interpretations conflict, or answers to specific questions.

RESEARCHERS A researcher might upload dozens of research papers and articles, then use NotebookLM to identify common themes and arguments, get summaries of each source, or ask questions about any particular subtopic.

WRITERS I uploaded the manuscripts of Uncommon Scents and Veilpiercer, award-winning near-future SF adventures that you should read, just saying. I can ask specific questions – “How old is Cabalynne?” (She’s 29 during Veilpiercer.) Or I can check general issues – “Are there any inconsistencies between the two stories?” (Don’t ask.) Authors can maintain character consistency and plot continuity in a long manuscript.

JOURNALISTS Journalists can upload interview transcripts, public records, internal memos, and news articles, and look for contradictions, get a briefing doc, or identify connections between different people and organizations.

BUSINESS A business owner creating an employee training program can curate a collection of manuals, best practices documents, and training videos, then use NotebookLM to generate a Q&A document, create a podcast that summarizes company policies, or create a quiz for new employees. Anyone in business can analyze annual reports, generate executive summaries, and track meeting action items.

SELF-REFLECTION There are people combining NotebookLM with their journaling to analyze and summarize their emotions or create interactive self-reflection experiences.

TRAVEL I’ve used NotebookLM for travel planning, assembling collections of webpages about a destination, then asking questions about specific cities and activities. Researching travel online has become so frustrating today because of the huge number of junk sites filled with advertising, written by AI, regurgitating second rate suggestions. I did an open-ended web search and opened dozens of tabs, then curated them one by one, adding the legitimate sites to the NotebookLM notebook. The result was a reliable and thorough guide where I could get the kind of solid advice that AI excels at: design a five-day itinerary, tell me about this attraction, lead me through the shopping district in that small town.

Those are literally just the a tiny fraction of the ways people are using NotebookLM.

Anything here sound useful for you?

The signature feature in NotebookLM at first was its ability to turn the sources in a notebook into a podcast style conversation between two hosts with a single click. It’s still a magical experience. The voices sound completely natural and the dialog is insightful and nuanced, whether you supply a single source or dozens of sources. Seriously, try it – add just a single document or website and have NotebookLM create a podcast. It’s astonishing.

A few months ago NotebookLM added an interactive mode. Once the initial podcast has been generated, another click allows you to join the conversation, ask questions, interrupt answers, and guide the focus of the hosts.

Last week Google began to roll out new ways to customize the audio overviews. The original 10-15 minute format is called “Deep Dive.” There are new options for “Brief,” “Critique,” and “Debate,” plus options to make the overview longer or shorter and to direct the focus with specific starting questions. This is rolling out slowly and may be limited to Pro subscribers for a while.

In July Google added visual overviews. Currently they resemble a Powerpoint presentation, narrated slides with a single voice providing commentary. There are options for topics, learning goals, and target audiences.

Mind maps in NotebookLM are not new but they are one of its most frequently used features. The sources are assembled into a visual look at interconnected themes and concepts. Clicking on the arrow to the right of an item in the map expands that idea into subthemes. Clicking on any of the words creates a chat query to dig deeper into what the sources say about that topic.

This might be a killer feature for many people. Google recently added a button to “Discover Sources.” If you provide a short description of a topic or question, NotebookLM will suggest a list of relevant articles and websites. You can create a notebook and generate a briefing doc with reputable sources in very short order.

The side panel in NotebookLM was revamped to consolidate the one-click and customizable features. Look under Reports for Briefing Doc, Study Guide, FAQ, and Timeline.

In July Google introduced Featured Notebooks, eight curated collections of sources covering longevity, parenting, 2025 trends, Shakespeare, and more. They are good ways to explore NotebookLM’s features and become familiar with it – but they also introduced the idea of sharing notebooks publicly.

There are already hundreds of thousands of shared notebooks. NotebookLM is starting to be a new method of small group collaboration.

Yesterday Google announced one-click flashcards and quizzes, upgraded report formats for research papers and training manuals, curated notebooks for high school and college students, and more.

NotebookLM now has mobile apps for iOS and Android. Google has repeatedly updated the AI engine that runs NotebookLM. It now supports over 80 languages – including customization of the audio overviews to reflect the unique speech patterns of each language, no easy task.

It’s obvious that NotebookLM is going to add features continuously and constantly. Keep checking in on it.

NotebookLM is magical. It’s useful. For many people it’s indispensable. Try it. And more importantly, remember it so it comes to mind when you have a project that would benefit from grounded summaries and analysis.

[Click here for the NotebookLM notebook with the source material used for this article.]