Google’s NotebookLM provides a dozen options...

Google has officially launched NotebookLM for the US beginning right now. The AI-powered pocket book app is a part of the corporate’s Experimental Labs incubator, and it initially debuted at Google I/O 2023 to a small variety of beta testers. It combines the duty of taking notes with the superior capabilities of LLMs, leveraging Google’s recently announced GPT-4 competitor, Gemini.

NotebookLM is just accessible to people within the US who’re 18 and up. If that sounds such as you, and also you wish to strive it, head to notebooklm.google.com and take a look at the device. You will have to check in along with your Google account should you aren’t already.

How does NotebookLM work?

Joe Hindy / Google / Pocket-lint

As acknowledged, it combines note-taking together with AI. There are a number of important components of NotebookLM. They embody the pocket book, notes, sources, and an AI chatbot. They work collectively with a view to enhance your note-taking expertise. A minimum of, that is what Google is hoping for.

You begin by making a pocket book. Inside, you’ll be able to take common notes, as you see within the screenshot above. There’s additionally a sidebar the place you’ll be able to add supply materials. I used an previous benchmark doc from my Google Drive there. Alongside the underside, you will have the NotebookLM AI chatbot. That is all housed within the authentic pocket book and every pocket book has its personal area for notes, sources, and the chatbot.

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From there, all the things works kind of as you’ll anticipate. You’ll be able to add notes that include no matter data you need. When you add sources, you’ll be able to ask the chatbot questions on these sources. It will additionally recommend questions should you’re having hassle figuring out what to ask. Within the instance screenshot above, it desires me to ask concerning the total benchmark rating for my ASUS G75VW laptop computer that I owned a few years in the past.

There is not an official app for smartphones or something like that. For now, it is solely accessible by Google’s web site, however you’ll be able to go to that web site in your smartphone, and it nonetheless works usually.

New options for NotebookLM

Joe Hindy / Pocket-lint

Along with the launch, Google boasts that it is added over a dozen new features to the app. These options are widespread throughout the app, so let’s go over every of them.

1. Elevated supply restrict – Notebooks can have as much as 20 sources.
2. Elevated phrase depend (for sources) – Sources added to a pocket book might be as much as 200,000 phrases.
3. Write particular person notes – Including a primary observe will create an unbiased observe as a substitute of including the observe to an current pocket book.
4. Noteboard – Now you can see your written and saved notes pinned to the Noteboard area above the chat field.
5. Save chat responses as notes – NotebookLM’s AI chat responses might be pinned to the noteboard for later reference.
6. Citations saved to notes – While you save AI chat responses as notes, they may retain their authentic citations.
7. Soar to quotation in supply – While you click on on the quotation quantity in a chat response or a saved observe, NotebookLM will take you on to the unique quote within the supply.
8. Broaden/collapse supply part – It’s now potential to cover the supply if you wish to deal with simply note-taking.
9. Focus the AI on chosen sources – It is not potential to speak with AI about particular sources in your pocket book by deciding on them individually within the supply sidebar.
10. Supply guides built-in into particular person sources – Supply guides, together with summaries and key matters, now seem on the prime of every supply within the supply sidebar.
11. Shared notebooks – Enabled collaboration in each viewer and editor modes, much like the way it works in Google Drive or Google Hold.
12. Urged questions – NotebookLM suggests followup questions based mostly in your latest dialog historical past with the chat AI.
13. PDF help – Now you can add PDF recordsdata as sources in NotebookLM. PDFs might be as much as 100MB in measurement or the aforementioned 200,000-word restrict.
14. Copied textual content help – Now you can copy and paste textual content to create a brand new supply and add or edit the title when creating it.
15. Instance notebooks – Google added some instance notebooks, so you’ll be able to see and check how NotebookLM works earlier than creating your individual.

Google can also be including some extra options subsequent week, together with the power to mix notes, obtain constructive criticism from NotebookLM, summarize a number of notes, create outlines, create examine guides, and extra.

Within the short-term, at the least, it is unlikely that NotebookLM will usurp the function Google Hold performs within the firm’s software program portfolio. Nevertheless, with the race to AI being as aggressive because it’s ever been, it would not be terribly stunning to see a few of these options find yourself in different Google apps and even spun off right into a full-blown app of its personal sometime.