I recently revisited Google’s NotebookLM and was impressed with how far it’s come. It was already good before, but recent updates have hooked me in, and I will keep coming back. Powered by Google’s Gemini AI, it can break down complex subjects into an easy-to-understand format or even help you brainstorm new ideas. If you’re a chaotic notetaker like me, even better: NotebookLM will help you make sense of your nonsense.
This isn’t just Google Keep stuffed with AI, nor is it just a chatbot that can take notes. It’s both and neither. Instead of asking questions to Gemini, only for it to find an answer from the ether of the internet, NotebookLM will only search through the sources that you provide it. It’s a dead simple concept that feels like one of the most practical uses of AI, giving way to the perfect study buddy for classes or work. And Google didn’t stop there.
Now it can do so much more, and will reward your poking around to see what it can do for you. And features like its impressive Audio Overviews have since trickled down into Gemini itself, allowing it to be used in a much wider set of Google’s products. With Google I/O 2025 just around the corner, we wouldn’t be surprised if even more features were added.
Below, we’ll cover some of NotebookLM’s most interesting features and use cases to help you get started.
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What is NotebookLM?
NotebookLM is a Gemini-powered note-taking and research assistant tool that can be used in a multitude of ways. It all starts with the sources you feed it, whether they’re webpage URLs, YouTube videos or audio clips, allowing you to pull multiple sources together into a cohesive package and bring some organization to your scattered thoughts or notes.
The most obvious use case for NotebookLM is using it for school or work. Think of it — you’ve kept up with countless classes and typed notes down for every one and even perhaps recorded some lectures. Sifting through everything individually can eventually get you to some semblance of understanding, but what if you could get them to work together?
Once you’ve uploaded your sources, Gemini will get to work to create an overall summary of the material. From there, you can begin asking Gemini questions about specific topics on the sources and information from the sources will be displayed in an easy-to-understand format. This alone may be enough for some people just looking to get the most out of their notes, but that’s really just scratching the surface.
Available for desktop and mobile
NotebookLM’s three panel layout
NotebookLM/Screenshot by Blake Stimac
NotebookLM has been available for a while now on the desktop, but as of Monday, it’s also available as an iOS and Android app, so you can now access all of your notebooks on your phone without having to use a mobile browser.
Broken into a three-pane layout, NotebookLM consists of Source, Chat and Studio panels. Both the Source and Studio panels are collapsible, so you can have a full-screen chat experience if you prefer.
While the Source and Chat panels are pretty self-explanatory, the Studio panel is where magic can happen (though some of the features can also be created directly from the Chat panel). This is where you can get the most out of your NotebookLM experience. Read on for some highlights of what you can do.
The mobile app for Android and iOS launched the day before Google I/O 2025.
Blake Stimac/CNET
Those familiar with the desktop experience will feel right at home with the new mobile apps. The streamlined app will allow you to switch between the Source, Chat and Studio panels via a menu at the bottom. When you go to the view that shows all of your notebooks, you’ll see tabs for Recent, Shared, Title, and Downloaded. Upon testing the app, I couldn’t find a way to share a notebook, but it’s more than likely something we’ll hear about soon. More on that below.
Audio Overviews
If you didn’t hear about NotebookLM when it was first announced, you likely did when Audio Overviews were released for it. Once you have at least one source uploaded, you can then opt to generate an Audio Overview, which will provide a “deep dive” on the source material. These overviews are created by none other than Gemini, and it’s not just a quick summary of your material in audio format — it’s a full-blown podcast with two “hosts” that break down complex topics into easy-to-understand pieces of information. They’re incredibly effective, too, often asking each other questions to dismantle certain topics.
The length of an Audio Overview will vary depending on how much material there is to go over and the complexity of the topic — though I’m sure there are other factors at play. In my testing, a very short piece of text created a five-minute audio clip, whereas two lengthier and more dense Google Docs documents I uploaded created an 18-minute Overview.
You can interact with your AI podcasters
It gets even better. Last December, NotebookLM got a new design and new ways to interact with Audio Overviews. The customize button allows you to guide the conversation so that key points are covered. Type in your directive and then generate your Audio Overview.
Now, if you want to make this feature even more interactive, you can choose the Interactive mode, which is still in beta, to join the conversation. The clip will play, and if you have a particular question in response to something that’s said, you can click the join button. Once you do, the speakers will pause and acknowledge your presence and ask you to chime in with thoughts or questions, and you’ll get a reply.
I wanted to try something a little different, so I threw in the lyrics of a song as the only source, and the AI podcast duo began to dismantle the motivations and emotions behind the words. I used the join feature to point out a detail in the lyrics they didn’t touch on, and the two began to dissect what my suggestion meant in the context of the writing. They then began linking the theme to other portions of the text. It was impressive to watch: They handled the emotional weight of the song so well, and tactfully at that.
Mind Maps
Generating a Mind Map is just one of several powerful features from NotebookLM
Google/Screenshot by Blake Stimac
I’d heard interesting things about NotebookLM’s Mind Map feature, but I wanted to go in blind when I tried it out, so I did a separate test. I took roughly 1,500 words of Homer’s Odyssey and made that my only source. I then clicked the Mind Map button, and within seconds, an interactive and categorical breakdown of the text was displayed for me to poke around in.
Many of the broken-down sections had subsections for deeper dives, some of which were dedicated to single lines for dissection. Clicking on a category or end-point of the map will open the chat with a prefilled prompt.
I chose to dive into the line, “now without remedy,” and once clicked, the chat portion of NotebookLM reopened with the prefilled prompt, “Discuss what these sources say about Now without remedy, in the larger context of [the subsection] Alternative (worse).” The full line was displayed, including who said it, what it was in response to and any motivations (or other references) for why the line was said in the text.
Study guides and more
If the combination of all that Audio Overviews and Mind Maps could do sounds like everything a student might need for the perfect study buddy, NotebookLM has a few other features that will solidify it in that place.
Study guides
After you’ve uploaded a source, you can create a quick study guide based on the material that will automatically provide a document with a quiz, potential essay questions, a glossary of key terms and answers for the quiz at the bottom. And if you want, you can even convert the study guide into a source for your notebook.
FAQs
Whether you’re using it for school or want to create a FAQ page for your website, the NotebookLM button generates a series of potentially common questions based on your sources.
Timeline
If you’re looking for a play-by-play sort of timeline, it’s built right in. Creating a timeline for the Odyssey excerpt broke down main events in a bulleted list and placed them based on the times mentioned in the material. If an event takes place at an unspecified time, it will appear at the top of the timeline, stating this. A cast of characters for reference is also generated below the timeline of events.
Briefing document
The briefing document is just what it sounds like, giving you a quick snapshot of the key themes and important events to get someone up to speed. This will include specific quotes from the source and their location. A summary of the material is also created at the bottom of the document.
How NotebookLM really ‘sold’ me
I already really liked NotebookLM’s concept and execution during its 1.0 days, and revisiting the new features only strengthened my appreciation for it. My testing was mostly for fun and to see how this tool can flex, but using it when I “needed” it helped me really get an idea of how powerful it can be, even for simple things.
During a product briefing, I did my typical note-taking: Open a Google Doc, start typing in fragmented thoughts on key points, and hope I could translate what I meant when I needed to refer back to them. I knew I would also receive an official press release, so I wasn’t (too) worried about it, but I wanted to put NotebookLM to the test in a real-world situation when I was using it for real — and not just tinkering, when nearly anything seems impressive when it does what you tell it to.
I decided to create a new notebook and make my crude notes (which looked like a series of bad haikus at first glance) the only source, just to see what came out on the other end. Not only did NotebookLM fill in the blanks, but the overall summary read almost as well as the press release I received the following day. I was impressed. It felt like alchemy — NotebookLM took some fairly unintelligible language and didn’t just turn it into something passable, but rather, a pretty impressive description.
Funny enough, I’ve since become a more thorough note-taker, but I’m relieved to know I have something that can save the day if I need it to.
Video Overviews and more could be on the way
Earlier this month, the official NotebookLM X account teased that new features would be announced during Google I/O this year, but little else. Luckily, we might have the answer now.
Thanks to some sleuthing from Testing Catalog, NotebookLM may receive an upgrade to Audio Overviews with Video Overviews, giving more form to your podcast duo that will discuss just about anything you throw at it. The feature could be powered by Veo, Google’s AI video generator, which is already available in Gemini directly.
Also spotted was an Editor’s Picks section that hints at the possibility of making your notebooks publicly available if you want, but also to get access to a curated list of some of the best notebooks from the NotebookLM team.
If you need more from NotebookLM, consider upgrading
Most individuals may never have the need to pay for NotebookLM, as the free feature is robust enough. But if you’re using it for work and need to be able to add more sources or the option to share your notebook with multiple people, NotebookLM Plus is worth considering. It gives you more of everything while introducing more customization, additional privacy and security features as well as analytics.
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