NotebookLM could get even better with this Gemini feature

Gemini earned a big upgrade last month when Google rolled out Personal Intelligence in the chatbot, allowing the chatbot to access context from other Google apps and refine responses. That’s a shift toward a more personalized and aware AI chatbot, and Google may be bringing it to other Gemini-powered apps and platforms, including NotebookLM.

Google now appears to be testing Personal Intelligence in the celebrated learning and research app. TestingCatalog recently discovered this option being tested and also gave us a preview of what it facilitates.

Based on the screenshots and description, it appears NotebookLM’s version of Personal Intelligence will vary from how it works in Gemini. Unlike the latter’s ability to imbibe knowledge from your activity across different Google apps, NotebookLM might only limit itself to knowledge sharing across different notebooks in the app. Besides just information, it could also extract “your goals” to serve you better.

In addition, NotebookLM might allow you to set “personas,” or a set of guidelines or instructions based on your profession or study objectives, to help improve responses. According to the initial findings, you might be able to set these goals either per notebook as well as for the entire notebook collection.

There’s no mention of accessing information from other Google apps yet.

Despite the framing, therefore, Personal Intelligence in NotebookLM may be more like chat memory in chats with Gemini, and more recently expanded to Search. Whether Google adds the option for broader access remains to be seen. However, the converse could be possible if Gemini gains the ability to access NotebookLM chats, as has also been suggested in the recent past.

Meanwhile, there’s no timeline on how soon the feature could be available for more users to try out.