NotebookLM may not be the most well-known of Google’s numerous AI products, but having been introduced as Project Tailwind in May 2023, it’s actually been around almost as long as the Google Gemini chatbot (originally called Bard, as you might remember).
Now, perhaps in a bid to make its suite of AI tools a little less confusing, Google is renaming NotebookLM as Gemini Notebook. If you love the app in its current form, though, don’t panic—not much else is changing.
“It remains a standalone product … but it will now do more across the Google ecosystem, including inside the Gemini app and Google Search,” explains Google. That “do more” will start with your notebooks appearing in AI Mode in Google Search for reference, which is rolling out soon.
Google’s announcement post also mentions that users on the Pro plans ($19.99 a month) will soon be getting the upgrades rolled out last month, which were previously exclusive to Ultra plan users ($99.99 or $199.99 a month).
These upgrades include a dedicated cloud computer for each notebook you create, enabling deeper analysis of sources and the ability to write and execute code natively (via Google Antigravity). It also means more capabilities in terms of what the app can do within each of your notebooks, including creating PDFs, charts, and slideshows, and editing them through prompts.
Credit: Google
Where Gemini ends and Gemini Notebook begins
You could be forgiven for getting confused about the difference between the standard Gemini AI chatbot app you find on the web and mobile, and the newly renamed Gemini Notebook—especially if you’ve not used the latter much.
They run on the same set of Gemini AI models, and can do a lot of the same tasks in terms of looking up information from the web and summarizing documents. When you’ve created notebooks inside Gemini Notebook, you can then also access them in the main Gemini app, confusing things even further.
What makes Gemini Notebook different is that it’s very much a research tool. You load up a bunch of sources, from YouTube videos to PDFs, and then get Gemini Notebook to query and summarize those sources, with citations.
As we’ve written about before, you can turn your notes into audio podcasts and video overviews, as well as mind maps, flashcards, infographics and slideshows. Unlike the main Gemini app, though, it can’t create images or videos out of a single prompt, without one or more sources to work from.
As an addendum: If you’re already a seasoned NotebookLM/Gemini Notebook user, you may have missed the latest feature upgrade, rolled out to all users a couple of weeks ago. It’s called Short Video Overview, and adds a shorter, vertical video format for your summary options: Click Video Overview then Short to use it.
