By Marina Avilés, on 6 February 2025
NotebookLM is an AI-powered tool developed by Google that is designed to process information from texts that users upload. Google describes it as a research and writing assistant that helps you better understand information. Once you upload your documents, NotebookLM instantly becomes an expert on the provided material, assisting you in refining and organizing your ideas.
Learn more about how this tool works and how you can apply it to your marketing efforts!
NotebookLM is available in over 180 regions, including the United States, and is completely free. It is built on Google's Gemini 1.5 AI model, introduced in 2024. You can access the tool through this link.
This tool is particularly fascinating for content writers, professionals managing large volumes of data, and creative teams. It can also be useful in brainstorming sessions or when comprehending highly complex and extensive materials.
In this article, we dive into NotebookLM to explain its features and show you how to make the most of this powerful AI tool.
Getting Started with NotebookLM
When you first access NotebookLM, you’ll see a welcome screen where Google outlines the different functionalities available.
Source: NotebookLM
Once you click “Create,” the tool will redirect you to its main interface, where you can start adding the sources of information you'd like it to process. You can upload documents from Google Drive (in presentation or Word formats), URLs from websites and YouTube, or simply paste text directly. You can add up to 50 sources—more than enough for most use cases.
After uploading your documents, the tool generates what it calls the "Notebook Guide," which includes four key sections:
Help Me Create: Suggests actions you can ask NotebookLM to perform based on the provided information.
Summary: Provides a brief overview of the uploaded content.
Audio Overview: Transforms your documents into a podcast-style discussion between two lifelike voices (one male, one female). This feature helps make the content more engaging and accessible. The audio takes a few minutes to generate and can be downloaded in both audio and text formats. You can customize the tone and focus of the audio, though this feature is currently only available in English. At Cyberclick, we tested NotebookLM by uploading our study on marketing and sales in the tech industry and received an impressive podcast-style interview in return.
FAQs: Offers suggested questions about the uploaded content.
Alternatively, you can bypass the guide and interact directly with the AI using the chat, asking any questions about your content. That being said, the guide is a helpful starting point, especially for beginners.
Lastly, NotebookLM organizes your work into "notebooks." Each notebook contains a group of related information and sources that you’ve provided. Within each notebook, you can create notes to organize your content further.
How Can Google NotebookLM Help You?
Now that you know how NotebookLM works, let’s explore some practical ways this tool can assist you in your daily life or work environment.
Synthesizing Information
NotebookLM excels at summarizing extensive information or explaining it in simpler terms. This makes it especially useful for students and academics who often deal with scattered notes and complex academic language. The tool can analyze, contextualize, and establish connections between information from multiple sources.
Research Assistance
You can think of NotebookLM as your digital tutor. It allows you to ask questions about a topic and generates questions to test your understanding of key concepts.
Idea Generation
NotebookLM isn’t just for summarizing or answering questions—it also has a creative side. Based on the material you provide, it can generate new ideas and connections, making it a valuable tool for brainstorming, project planning, and strategy development.
Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
You can share the notebooks you create with your organization or colleagues, building a collective knowledge base.
NotebookLM vs. ChatGPT: What’s the Difference?
You might be wondering if ChatGPT can do everything NotebookLM does. The short answer is yes. The key difference is that NotebookLM works exclusively with the content you provide, minimizing the risk of generating false information, improvising, or making errors. Additionally, NotebookLM always cites its sources for every response it generates.
Practical Examples of Using NotebookLM
To demonstrate how NotebookLM works, we tested it with a YouTube video titled “25 Types of Marketing Strategies That Work.” This video was the only source of information, but you can upload up to 50 sources related to a single topic.
Summarizing Content
We asked NotebookLM to summarize the video without any specific instructions. The result was excellent, as it highlighted the most important points for each marketing strategy mentioned.
Answering Specific Questions
Next, we asked a very targeted question based on the video: “Which digital marketing strategies maximize ROI the most?” The tool provided a well-rounded and comprehensive answer that we deemed very satisfactory.
Generating Audio, Podcasts, or Debates
Although the video is already engaging as a YouTube production, NotebookLM can transform it into a podcast where two human-like voices discuss the topic. This feature is especially useful when starting with a written text or when you want the information presented in a simpler, more conversational format.
NotebookLM stands out as a versatile and user-friendly tool that combines research, summarization, creativity, and collaboration. Whether you're a student, a professional, or part of a creative team, this tool can simplify your workflow and provide new ways to engage with your content.
