I started using Google’s nifty NotebookLM to sort through and make sense of my documents, notes, and stray bits of information. Now, the AI tool is getting a new series of “featured notebooks” from a variety of sources for all of us to explore. Google announced the new feature on Monday, along with partnerships with respected publications to supply a curated collection of notebooks that will grow over time.
NotebookLM is a unique and powerful notetaking and research tool, and it’s my overall favorite piece of AI kit available. Google continues to introduce new features that make it into a powerhouse for learning and research that you can use for school, work, play or somewhere in between.
Here’s what you need to know about the new featured notebook collection. For more, don’t miss how Google Lens can be your personal travel tour guide.
A few featured notebooks for starters
Right now, the collection of featured notebooks is somewhat limited, though it will grow as time goes on.
There are currently eight notebooks for you to explore:
Each notebook allows you to explore the original sources, view a mind map, and listen to a pre-made Audio Overview. That’s in addition to the ability to ask questions based on the sources in the chat, which is NotebookLM’s simplest and most obvious use case.
Google has partnered with both The Economist and The Atlantic, so you can expect to see additional collections of notebooks on the way from these publications.
Public notebooks made featured notebooks possible
Last month, Google introduced the ability to mark your notebooks as public so you could share them with anyone you wanted to. Google said there have been over 140,000 public notebooks created. While that’s a bit tough to assess without additional data points, the introduction of public notebooks paved the way for featured notebooks. Previously, your creations were available to you and only you, unless you’d upgraded to the premium version of NotebookLM.
More features on the way
We know of at least one more feature that NotebookLM will eventually offer, and that’s Video Overviews. Audio Overviews are already great — so much so that Google has added them to more of its products. The introduction of Video Overviews will definitely appeal to those who could easily tune out when listening to audio or are more visual learners.
There’s no specific date attached to their arrival, outside of the “coming soon” timeline Google provided in a blog post during the Google I/O conference in May.
The AI- and web-focused tech site Testing Catalog has been ahead of the game when it comes to discovering new features or features that Google is testing for NotebookLM. Here’s what else they’ve managed to spot that could be on the way.
AI flashcards: You can already create study guides with NotebookLM, but a new feature that could be of great benefit to students is the ability to generate flashcards on the fly based on your content sources.
Discover sources via Google Drive: NotebookLM lets you find new sources in the Discover Sources section. You type in what you’re looking for, and it scour the web for relevant content. Soon, that search may extend to Google Drive.
Interactive Quizzes: Google’s making NotebookLM a go-to assistant for students, and it might add interactive quizzes based on your sources.
Microsoft Word doc support: Right now, when you’re trying to select a source from Google Drive, you can only choose between Google Docs or Google Slides. In the future, it appears that NotebookLM might gain support for adding Microsoft Word docs that are also in your Drive, too.
For more, don’t miss the 11 things you should stop using ChatGPT for right now.
