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NotebookLMis an online tool developed by GoogleLabs, powered by Gemini artificial intelligence.
It was originally launched in 2023 under the codename Project Tailwind, then removed around mid-October 2024 to officially become NotebookLM, available to all users today.
🤌 What is NotebookLM?
NotebookLM is a Google project born with a simple yet ambitious goal: to help you better understand the information you already have. It's not a search engine, nor a traditional notepad, but an intelligent assistant powered by Gemini AI, capable of reading your documents, analyzing them, and providing you with explanations, summaries, and even multimedia content.
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| [Source notebooklm.google] |
Imagine it as a personal tutor working on the materials you provide: upload a PDF, a presentation, or a link to an article, and NotebookLM becomes capable of answering questions, clarifying complex concepts, creating targeted summaries, and suggesting connections between the various texts. All this without "inventing" information, but drawing exclusively on the sources you have entered.
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| [Source notebooklm.google] |
✍️ How does it work in practice?
The heart of NotebookLM is the creation of a "notebook," a digital notebook that collects your sources. Once you've chosen the documents to insert – which can be PDF files, Google Docs, slides, web pages, or even the transcript of a YouTube video – you have an interactive environment in which to communicate with the AI.
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| First Access |
You can ask direct questions, request clarification, or request a summary of the main points. NotebookLM can provide various types of re-elaborations: from the classic textual summary to a series of frequently asked questions, to the creation of a timeline that traces events in chronological order. This way, you no longer have to read hundreds of pages to find what you need: the AI filters, selects, and recomposes the information according to your needs.
A particularly interesting aspect is the transformation of content into multimedia experiences. As early as 2024, NotebookLM introduced Audio Overviews, real AI-generated podcasts in which two synthetic voices discuss the highlights of the material you've uploaded.
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| Audio Overview [Source notebooklm.google] |
In 2025, this feature was joined by Video Overviews, which present the same content in a visual format, enriched with graphs and narration. Added to these is the ability to create mind maps, ideal for those who prefer a visual representation of concepts and the relationships between them.
👨💻 How to start using it?
Getting started with NotebookLM is quite simple. It is accessible both from a browser, via the official website, and from a mobile device, by downloading the app available for Android and iOS. After logging in with your Google account, simply create a new notebook and start uploading materials.
- From the browser: go to notebooklm.google and log in with your Google account.
- From smartphone: download the “Google NotebookLM” app from the Play Store or App Store (works on Android 10+ and iOS 17+).
There are two versions of the service:
- The first is free and offers all the essential functions: uploading documents, creating summaries and interacting in chat.
- The second is the advanced version, called NotebookLM Plus, which is part of the Google One AI Premium subscription. This paid variant unlocks additional tools such as podcast and video generation, increased storage capacity, and the ability to work collaboratively with others on the same notebook.
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| Plans as of 08/30/2025 |
✂️ What is it really for?
NotebookLM can be used in various contexts:
- For students, it can become an ally in studying: just upload university lecture notes or a PDF manual to get an automatic summary, a series of quizzes, or a podcast that explains the main concepts while you're traveling.
- For researchers and professionals, it represents a quick way to analyze large amounts of data and summarize them in clear reports or visual presentations.
A concrete example
You have a 200-page document with data and statistics. Instead of wasting days on it, you upload it to NotebookLM, which in a few minutes reduces it to a five-page summary, highlights the most relevant data, organizes it in a mind map, and even prepares a presentation ready to be shown in a meeting.
🦸♂️ Why is it different from other AI tools?
Many AI-based tools are generalists: they answer any question by drawing on huge amounts of data available online. NotebookLM, on the other hand, works only on your documents. This makes it ideal when precision is needed and when it's crucial to be sure that the answers come exclusively from the material provided.
The ability to generate audio and video directly from uploaded content is another distinguishing feature. Not everyone learns the same way: some prefer reading, some listening, some viewing graphic representations. NotebookLM offers all these modes in a single environment. Added to this is complete integration with the Google ecosystem – Drive, Docs, Slides, YouTube – which simplifies uploading and managing materials. Finally, the collaboration function allows multiple people to work together on the same project, making it a suitable tool for teams and study groups.
In summary
- It doesn't just "chat": it only works on your documents.
- It offers automatically generated audio and video, useful for those who prefer to learn visually or auditorily.
- It is integrated into the Google ecosystem, so it interacts well with Docs, Drive, and YouTube.
- It also supports Collaboration: Multiple people can work in the same notebook.
💠Conclusion
NotebookLM represents a step forward in the way we interact with information. It's not simply a place to collect notes, but a true research and learning assistant
Whether you're a student looking for a more effective study method, a professional who needs to synthesize large amounts of data, or simply a curious person who wants to save time and effort, NotebookLM is designed to reduce reading burden and increase comprehension. In other words, to leave you more time to dedicate to what really matters: thinking, creating, and deciding.
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