Notebook LM: The Ultimate User Guide with Real-life Examples 🗒

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear Nanobiters,

We're all too familiar with the rapid growth of information.

Navigating the sheer volume of data available can feel overwhelming.

Whether you are a student, a professor, or a knowledge worker, the real struggle lies in synthesizing insights and ideas from multiple sources. Although you often have the right information at your fingertips, connecting the dots is a time-consuming process.

This challenge inspired Google to explore solutions that could help people make crucial connections faster, especially when working with the sources that are most valuable to them.

I covered the review of one of these tools in last Thursday's edition: Google Illuminate.

But if you thought Google Illuminate was mind-blowing, wait till I introduce you to Google Notebook LM.

NotebookLM is Google's experimental AI-first notebook, powered by Google's most capable model, Gemini 1.5 Pro.

The tool uses AI for quick summarization and note taking; it acts as your intelligent virtual research assistant, providing insights grounded in reliable sources that you upload.

I’ve had great fun using NotebookLM so far, and in this edition of Nanobits Product Spotlight, I want to show you how it can transform your research and learning experiences into something more interactive, engaging, and enjoyable.

So, let's dive in and even create some podcasts while we're at it!

WHAT IS GOOGLE NOTEBOOK LM?

NotebookLM is an experimental tool that harnesses the capabilities of language models. It works together with your uploaded content to help you uncover critical insights more efficiently.

Imagine it as a digital research assistant who can condense key facts, break down intricate concepts, and spark new connections grounded in your specific sources.

What sets NotebookLM apart from conventional AI chatbots is its ability to "ground" the language model in your notes and source material, also known as citations. This grounding process creates a personalized AI finely tuned to the information that matters most to you.

NotebookLM has been doing rounds on the internet due to its impressive ability to create lifelike podcasts from documents.

But NotebookLM's capabilities go far beyond that. It's designed to efficiently summarize complex and lengthy documents, respond to specific questions about their content, and even convert them into various formats such as briefings, study guides, or podcasts.

Furthermore, NotebookLM streamlines your workflow by eliminating the need to switch between different windows or apps constantly. Whether you want to ask questions, generate summaries, or take notes, NotebookLM brings the power of AI directly to your content.

HOW DOES GOOGLE NOTEBOOK LM WORK?

To start your NotebookLM journey, head to the NotebookLM website and sign in using your Google account.

You'll receive a user-friendly guide to initiate your first notebook upon signing in. Click on "Create."

Next, you'll be prompted to upload a document to kick-start your notebook.

There are five distinct options for document upload:

1. Upload files directly from your computer in PDF, .txt, or Markdown formats.

2. Please provide a direct link to a website using its URL.

3. Copy and paste text directly into the notebook.

4. Link to an existing Google Doc.

5. Link to an existing Google Slideshow.

Choose the most suitable option for your desired information source and link to your document.

However, there are a few limitations to consider:

• Currently, you can upload a maximum of 50 files, each limited to 500,000 words.

• Primarily designed for text-based documents, Excel files are currently not supported.

• Larger documents may increase processing time. If you're working with numerous files, prioritizing key sources can expedite the generation of insights.

Once your documents are successfully uploaded, NotebookLM is primed to unleash its capabilities.

KEY FEATURES OF GOOGLE NOTEBOOK

Let’s explore NotebookLM’s features through sample documents.

Sources

In NotebookLM, a source refers to a static copy of the document you import or upload into the application. The model utilizes this copy to respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests. The following section details the various supported file types.

It's important to note that NotebookLM does not modify or erase your original files. When you upload a Google Doc or a local PDF, the app creates a duplicate of the original. Any subsequent changes to the original document are not automatically reflected in NotebookLM. To ensure you're working with the most up-to-date version, you'll need to manually refresh any uploaded local files or use the "Click to Sync" button for imported Google Docs and Slides.

Source Type

Currently, NotebookLM is compatible with the following types of source material:

• Google Docs

• Google Slides

• PDF, Text, and Markdown files

• Web URLs (web pages)

• Text copied and pasted directly

Each source can accommodate up to 500,000 words, and each notebook can hold a maximum of 50 sources. These limits are subject to periodic review to ensure optimal user experience.

Please refrain from uploading any documents for which you do not possess the necessary rights or permissions.

Source Guide

Upon uploading a new source to NotebookLM, the application promptly generates a source overview. This overview encapsulates the document's key points and presents relevant topics and questions for further exploration.

Consider it your personal research assistant, guiding you toward a deeper understanding of the source material.

Notebook Guide

Once you've uploaded a document into NotebookLM, you'll see a dashboard called the "Notebook Guide."

This dashboard offers:

• A concise, automatically generated summary of the documents you've uploaded.

• Thought-provoking questions specifically tailored to your documents encourage deeper exploration.

• Convenient buttons for generating a few standard summary documents, such as FAQs, study guides, briefing docs, or tables of content.

• A prompt to effortlessly create a personalized podcast based on your uploaded material.

Questions & Answers

A standout feature of NotebookLM is its ability to field natural language questions about your uploaded documents. You have three convenient options for posing your questions:

1. Select one of the "Suggested questions" displayed on the right side of the Notebook guide.

2. Begin typing your own question directly into the bar at the bottom of the page.

3. Click "View Chat" on the lower left to access the chat page and enter your question.

Regardless of your chosen method, you'll be directed to the chat page where your question will be answered.

For example, I'll type, "What are the five biggest takeaways from the book?" into the bottom bar.

In response, the AI provided me with a bulleted list outlining the five biggest takeaways.

Importantly, NotebookLM goes beyond just answering the question; it also provides specific citations, indicating where it sourced the information. These citations appear as small numbers within gray ovals next to the relevant text. Hovering over or clicking on these numbers reveals the precise location within the document. Let's click on number 3 for a demonstration.

Upon clicking reference number 3, the "Source guide" opens on the left, highlighting the exact passage in the document corresponding to that specific statement in the answer. This feature proves incredibly valuable for verifying information and diving deeper into the source material.

It's important to remember that the chat page is temporary. The chat history will be lost if you close or refresh your browser. To preserve any parts of the conversation, save the relevant AI responses as notes by clicking "Save to note” at the bottom right of each reply.

Notes

The notes page appears by default when neither the notebook guide nor the chat is active.

The notes page is initially empty. Let's populate it with notes.

There are two types: written and AI-generated.

Self-written Notes

Written notes are those you create yourself. To start a new one, click "Add note" at the top of the notes page. This action generates a new, blank note.

To edit the note, simply click on it. The note will expand to the center of the screen, allowing you to modify the title (initially set as "New Note") and add your text.

The note updates in real-time as you type. Once you've completed your note, click anywhere outside of it to minimize it. Your written note will then be added to the notes page and marked with a green "Written Note" label, distinguishing it from AI-generated notes.

AI-written Notes

Next, let's create an AI-generated note. Navigate back to the chat by clicking "View Chat," then prompt it to answer how Kurt Vonnegut uses war to explore the meaning of life.

Scroll down to the bottom of the AI's response, where you'll find the "Save to note" button in the lower right corner. Clicking this button will convert the AI's answer into a saved note.

Now, on the notes page, you'll observe both the written note from earlier and the newly created AI-generated note. The latter is labeled in blue as "Saved Response."

The default title for this note is "New Saved Note," which you can modify by clicking on the note. However, editing any other part of the AI-generated note is not possible.

This section demonstrates how efficiently you can gather and organize your thoughts and the most valuable chat results in one centralized location. Remember, any unsaved chat content will be lost when you exit the notebook.

Audio Overview

NotebookLM boasts a truly groundbreaking capability: the ability to generate customized podcasts featuring two AI voices discussing your documents.

This goes beyond simple text-to-speech; it's not a mere verbal transcription. Instead, it simulates a conversation between two hosts who dive into the critical points of your uploaded material, creating an experience akin to listening to an actual podcast. The voices are surprisingly natural and expressive.

Let's create a podcast based on the book. First, navigate to the Notebook guide by clicking the button in the lower right corner.

The only available podcast format is the "deep dive conversation." Click "Generate" under Audio Overview and allow a few minutes for the podcast to be created.

The duration of the podcast varies but typically falls between 6 and 15 minutes. There have been instances of podcasts reaching 30 minutes. It's worth noting that the podcast doesn't cover every detail in your documents; the AI intelligently selects the most important aspects for discussion.

While this feature is impressive, some quirks remain to be ironed out. For example, the AI voices might occasionally share personal anecdotes, use phrases like "tune in next time," or even pause for non-existent commercial breaks. These are expected to be refined as the product continues to evolve.

Once your podcast is ready, you'll have a few options. Clicking the three dots in the upper right corner of the podcast rectangle reveals options to adjust playback speed, download the file, or delete the podcast (with the possibility of regenerating a new one).

GOOGLE NOTEBOOK LM vs. ILLUMINATE

In our last Nanobits Product Spotlight edition, we experimented with Google Illuminate. The research paper we used for our study was titled Experimental Evidence That Conversational Artificial Intelligence Can Steer Consumer Behavior Without Detection.

Let’s use the same research paper to explore Google Notebook LM and observe the salient differences between the two tools:

Audio from Illuminate

Audio from NotebookLM

Salient Differences:

1. NotebookLM provides a longer and more in-depth audio overview.

2. NotebookLM’s suggested questions are of higher quality than that of Illuminate.

3. NotebookLM lets you create supplementary documents like notes, briefing docs, study guides, FAQs, etc.

4. NotebookLM’s conversation quality is closer to that of an actual podcast. Illuminate generates audio with robotic voices.

5. NotebookLM lets you download the audio generated; Illuminate doesn’t.

6. NotebookLLM doesn’t provide a transcript, but Illuminate does.

7. Audio overviews generated via Illuminate can be shared publicly. NotebookLM allows shareability only via email addresses.

   • This might be due to the privacy clauses of NotebookLM.

NotebookLM never trains on your data. If you provide feedback, human reviewers may review your queries, uploads, and the model's responses to troubleshoot, address abuse or make improvements. Keep in mind that it's best to avoid submitting any information you wouldn't feel comfortable sharing.

While both Google Notebook LM and Illuminate leverage AI to make complex information more accessible, they cater to slightly different needs and audiences:

CASE STUDIES FROM REAL USERS

• Author Walter Isaacson: Utilizing NotebookLM to analyze Marie Curie's journals for his upcoming book, demonstrating its value for in-depth research.

• Documentary and podcast researchers: Leveraging NotebookLM to navigate complex archives efficiently, generating scripts and story ideas.

• Local governance: Thomas Gaume: Creating a hyperlocal newsletter by aggregating various city documents, showcasing NotebookLM's ability to empower citizen journalism.

• Consultant Victor Adefuye: Analyzing sales call transcripts to identify patterns and improve training, highlighting NotebookLM's potential for business insights.

• Nonprofits: Employing NotebookLM to identify community needs and streamline grant proposal preparation, demonstrating its social impact.

• Creative writing: Novelists and fan-fiction authors use NotebookLM to manage intricate storylines, showcasing its versatility beyond traditional research.

• Role-playing game enthusiasts: Consult NotebookLM for detailed descriptions of fantasy worlds, which add another dimension to entertainment and gaming.

I browsed through the Discord Forum to scope out interesting use cases of Notebook LM. Here’s what I found:

• Summarization: Condensing lengthy documents like research papers into clear and concise points.

• Educational Tool: Assisting with learning by transforming complex information into easily digestible formats.

• Content Creation:

  • Generating different chapters of a book as individual blog posts.

  • Transforming product requirement documents as one-pagers for the business teams.

  • Generating battle cards for competition analysis.

  • Museum databases into audio overviews.

  • Summarizing blogs, newsletters, emails, and messages into audio summaries.

• Accessibility: Providing podcast transcripts and catering to dyslexic users through conversational instructions.

• Research and Analysis:

  • Extract critical information from PDF invoices and organize that information into a structured format (tables) for financial reporting purposes.

  • Gathering stats for fantasy football sites from multiple sources.

  • Analyzing resumes and LinkedIn profiles.

  • Extracting information from judicial reviews and legal cases.

• Creative Applications:

  • Facilitating board games (like D&D) with interactive storytelling and information management.

  • Transforming boring legal cases into engaging narratives.

NANOBITS VERDICT

• Ease of use - 7/10

• Features - 9/10

• Price - FREE OF COST

• Speed - 7/10

What could have been better:

1. NotebookLM consistently responds "The system was unable to answer."

2. Some terms are mispronounced.

3. Improper formatting in case of mathematical functions.

4. UI/UX is not intuitive.

5. Chat disappears if not saved as Notes.

6. Source prompting is not allowed. Hacks don’t work effectively.

7. Audio overviews can be shared only by email ids; not publicly.

8. Audio overviews do not consider all sources (in case of multiple sources).

9. 2-way conversation with the audio is not yet allowed.

10. Only available in English.

11. Excel sheets are not allowed. The type of source files is currently limited.

12. External integrations are limited.

Potential Use Cases:

• Analyze forum threads and provide summaries of the missed conversation.

• Google Drive Integration.

• Transcripts should be made available.

• Audio overview of individual and/or selected sources.

• Include more choices of voice.

• Discord/Slack Chat Integration: Seamlessly integrating with Discord for chat-based interactions.

• Customization:

  • Offering options for different conversational styles in generated content (podcast, teacher, friend, or scientist).

  • Allowing users to upload AI-generated content to platforms like YouTube (with proper attribution).

  • Supporting multiple languages.

• Improved Functionality:

  • Making podcasts publicly shareable.

  • Enabling two-way conversations within the tool.

  • Addressing inconsistencies in AI-generated voices.

  • Creating (any search engine) searchable summaries.

NotebookLM is still experimental so that you might encounter occasional hiccups or difficulty navigating new feature updates. Luckily, there are two readily available avenues for assistance, both conveniently located in the upper right corner:

• The question mark enclosed in a circle leads to a dedicated support page.

• The Discord button connects you to a specialized Discord forum for NotebookLM users.

The support page is a treasure trove of information on utilizing NotebookLM effectively. It's particularly useful when new features are introduced.

The Discord forum is another valuable resource. It's a vibrant community where Google representatives and fellow NotebookLM users actively engage. This platform is ideal for sharing feedback, requesting features, seeking inspiration, or asking for help.

I highly recommend exploring NotebookLM firsthand! Dive into its various features and discover how it can elevate your productivity and workflow. Let us know your experience in the comments.