Google’s NotebookLM turns documents, articles, and other information into a web-based notebook to help organize notes for a class, work, or other projects. It can even spit out a podcast featuring two AI hosts who summarize and analyze what you upload. But a recent update will let Google’s AI find your sources; no need to upload anything.
“When you tap the Discover button in NotebookLM, you can describe the topic you’re interested in, and NotebookLM will bring back a curated collection of relevant sources from the web,” says
Google software engineer Adam Bignell. Click to add those sources to your notebook; “it’s a fast and easy way to quickly grasp a new concept or gather essential reading on a topic.”
You can still add your files. NotebookLM can ingest PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs, or Google Slides and summarize, transcribe, narrate, or convert into FAQs and study guides. “Discover sources” helps incorporate information you may not have saved.
Look for the “Discover sources” button on the left-hand panel and drop in a prompt. In response, “NotebookLM gathers hundreds of potential web sources in seconds. It analyzes them and picks the most relevant ones based on your defined topic,” Google says. You can then select the ones you find helpful and import them to the Sources panel on the homepage.
The imported sources stay within the notebook you created. You can read the entire original document, ask questions about it via chat, or apply other NotebookLM features to it.
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If you’re not sure about what you’re looking for or want to explore something new, click the
“I’m feeling curious” button below the prompt box after you hit Discover sources. This generates sources on a random topic that you might find interesting.
Google started rolling out both features on Wednesday. It should be available for all users in about “a week or so.” For those concerned about privacy, Google says, “NotebookLM does not use your personal data, including your source uploads, queries, and the responses from the model for training.”
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About Jibin Joseph
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