Google launches NotebookLM

Google introduces NotebookLM powered by Gemini Pro, 

drops waitlist

At I/O 2023 in May, Google demoed an “AI-first notebook” which was originally called Project Tailwind. NotebookLM is now offered as general release in the US, and – like Bard – will now be powered by Gemini Pro.  Google has “talked to knowledge workers, creators, students, and educators to learn more about the ways they are using (and what they are liking about) NotebookLM” since early access opened in July. Users like the auto-generated summaries and suggested follow-up questions which provide a “helpful new way to comprehend difficult text and synthesize connections between multiple documents.” Gemini Pro is specifically used for document understanding and reasoning, but PaLM 2 and other models are also being leveraged. With subject launch, NotebookLM is adding a dozen new features in the near future. A “Noteboard” that appears above the chat box with a card-based grid UI will let you save NotebookLM responses, excerpts from your sources, and any notes you’ve written.

NotebookLM Gemini Pro

You can select multiple notes and prompt NotebookLM to summarize, combine into a single note, create an outline, study guide or something broader, like turning “your notes into an email newsletter, a script outline, a draft of a marketing plan.” There’s also a shortcut to export to Google Docs. Meanwhile, NotebookLM will “dynamically suggest actions based on whatever you happen to be doing”:  ”…when you select a passage while reading a source, NotebookLM will automatically offer to summarize the text to a new note, or help you understand technical language or complicated ideas.”

“…while you’re writing a note, NotebookLM will offer tools to polish or refine your prose, or suggest related ideas from your sources based on what you’ve just written.” NotebookLM lets you select sources (from the sidebar) to chat specifically with just those information sets, while Google is increasing the per source notebook limit to 100.  Other updates let you hide the source and quickly jump from a citation to the source. These new features are rolling out in the near future following the Gemini Pro launch for all users.