Here's how to get started with Google's NotebookLM

You may know Steven Johnson as an author. He has written a number of books, many of which focus on the science of our thinking and the history of innovation. But he's also a Googler who has worked on the NotebookLM team since the project began two years ago. “Simply put, NotebookLM is a tool for understanding things,” says Steven. Think of it as your virtual note-taking and research assistant: NotebookLM absorbs, processes and analyzes information so you can learn more from it. It's designed for the “deeper dive” you may need to delve into a topic – or multiple topics at once.

With NotebookLM you create custom notebooks dedicated to a topic or project. You can upload up to 50 “sources” with up to 25 million words – everything from PDFs, Google Docs, websites, and YouTube videos. NotebookLM then leverages Gemini 1.5's multimodal capabilities to evaluate and create connections between the sources you add. You can ask questions about the content or ask NotebookLM to format it in a specific way – it will even display citations that point to the most relevant original passages in your sources. And your private data is never shared or used to train the model.

If you're just starting out, try these eight tips from Steven to get the most out of NotebookLM.

1. Experiment with your current documents – even if they are random

One of the first things Steven suggests new NotebookLM users do is to upload their ten most recent documents to a notebook and start experimenting by asking questions. Even if your latest documents are unrelated and completely random, this is a great way to test the power of NotebookLM. Whether you know the contents of the documents down to the smallest detail or are still fairly new to it, NotebookLM will help you gain some interesting insights.

2. Create a master notebook and then identify topic-based notebooks

Steven suggests keeping what's called an “everything notebook” that you fill with sources that contain the general knowledge you work with most days. The sources can be inspirational quotes from books you read, or the core documents that describe the company you work for, or all your brainstorming ideas that you have collected over the years. “I do a lot of open-ended thinking and exploring ideas in my 'Everything' notebook,” says Steven. But it is just as important to create topic or project-related notebooks. “I have a notebook dedicated solely to the work we do building NotebookLM,” Steven explains. “It contains all the press releases, new feature descriptions, and important internal documents that we write as a team.” By storing all of these related sources in a single notebook, Steven effectively has personalized AI, almost as if he had another one Member of the team. “I can go in there and type something like 'Design a blog post outline for the feature we talked about last week,' and Notebook knows exactly what to do.”

3. Use NotebookLM to connect the dots made of different materials

NotebookLM is extremely useful for situations where you need to manage, connect, and synthesize information from multiple sources. “We all have this problem when we're working on something and the information we need is scattered across desktop folders, tabs, whatever,” says Steven. That's what NotebookLM is made for, he explains: connecting all those scattered dots.

This can be especially helpful as a next step after using Gemini and Gems. After you brainstorm or have other open conversations in these tools, NotebookLM can convert the results into easy-to-understand content. Steven offers the example of working on a slide deck. Maybe you start the process by brainstorming with Gemini, which involves opening some tabs with articles, saving some design inspiration images, and pasting some notes into a Google Doc. You can then feed all of that into NotebookLM, which synthesizes the information into an easy-to-understand format so you can look it all up in one place when you start creating your presentation in Google Slides.

4. Start with the suggested questions

Once you've added content to NotebookLM, it's time to ask questions – which may leave you stumped. Similar to the tips we shared about using the Gemini-based side panel in Workspace tools, Steven says NotebookLM's suggested questions are a great resource. “The model actually helps you ask questions that take you through the material for a while until you think of something you want to ask,” he explains. Some starter questions can be found in the “Notebook Guide” that appears after you upload your first sources. As you start asking questions, NotebookLM will also suggest follow-up questions based on the questions you've already asked and uploaded.

5. Ask NotebookLM to provide information in different ways

Steven says that from initial testing it became clear that NotebookLM needed to display information in different formats. “Everyone processes information differently or simply wants to see information presented in different ways,” he explains. Using the Notebook Guide feature, NotebookLM can transform your uploaded content into an FAQ, a briefing document, a timeline, a table of contents, a study guide – or the popular new audio overview that actually turns your information into an exciting conversation between two AI ” Hosts”. Try different options to see what works best for both your own learning purposes and for presenting information to others.

6. Don't be afraid of creative uses

NotebookLM is an excellent resource for work and school projects (the team just launched a pilot program for NotebookLM Business for workplace collaboration). But it's also a great tool for many creative uses outside of the office or classroom. “We see a lot of people using it to help them write fantasy and science fiction novels, or develop games where they work on world-building and intricate backstories,” says Steven. For your script, you may have made a few notes in a document, saved various websites, and used photos and videos as inspiration. “It can be difficult to keep track of all this information,” says Steven. “You can put all that stuff in a single notebook and ask things like, 'What was going on with this one character?' Or 'Remind me which characters live where?'”

Steven particularly likes that you can ask NotebookLM for creative input with questions like, “Which characters do you think are the most compelling?” or, “What are your favorite parts?” “It's like saying F for 'Interesting' could control!” he says.

7. Turn your sources into audio overviews

You should definitely convert each of those 10 documents you start with, or whatever else you upload, into an audio overview, says Steven. “After waiting a few minutes for it to generate, you'll have a very entertaining, mind-blowing audio conversation about everything you uploaded!” says Steven. And the team just released a new feature in Audio Overviews that lets you customize the format of the conversation. Simply click Customize in the Audio Overviews section and enter a brief description of what you want the presenters to focus on in your sources. “You can also control it in terms of the level of complexity you want from the overview,” Steven explains. “I uploaded my own writing and asked them to give me constructive criticism of my work.”