Google's NotebookLM Receives Major Chat Upgrade with Enhanced Memory and Customization Features

NotebookLM's Chat Feature Is Getting a Big Upgrade. Here's What's Changing

Blake has over a decade of experience writing for the web, with a focus on mobile phones, where he covered the smartphone boom of the 2010s and the broader tech scene. When he's not in front of a keyboard, you'll most likely find him playing video games, watching horror flicks, or hunting down a good churro. Google has just pushed an update to NotebookLM's chat, making it better than ever. Going forward, conversations in the AI notetaking and research assistant tool should be more natural and informative. And the chat will remember more. NotebookLM is a unique AI tool in that it provides answers only based on the sources you provide, preventing you from receiving mixed or obscured information. It's great for both work and school, allowing you to create flashcards for a big test or review your next presentation. Here's what you can expect with the new, supercharged NotebookLM chat. Google introduced some back-end changes that have boosted NotebookLM's chat "significantly," according to the announcement blog post. Performance, quality, and contextual understanding have all been improved with the latest Gemini models leading the way. NotebookLM's chat now has a 1 million token context window for Gemini, available across all plans. Even free users can reap the benefits. Google says it's increased the capacity for multiturn conversations more than sixfold, allowing for more relevant responses over longer chat sessions. NotebookLM is better at providing answers based on your sources, thanks to a new way of getting information from them. It'll now find answers by assessing the initial question from multiple angles, which should provide a more thorough answer. Google says this is particularly important for notebooks that have a large number of sources, where several factors need to be considered and assessed to provide a quality answer. Previously, anytime you closed the NotebookLM tab, the chat would be erased. This will soon no longer be the case. Starting next week, you can save conversations you have within a notebook. This is helpful for notebooks that you return to frequently. You will no longer have to re-explain the context you added in your last conversation. You can delete your chat history, and conversations you've had in shared notebooks will remain viewable only to you. One of the more interesting features for NotebookLM's chat has been the introduction of conversation styles. Sometimes, to get in the right mindset, you need to be provided the information in a more specific way, and that's exactly what this does. While there are a couple of premade options to choose from, such as analyst or learning guide, it's the custom option that is the standout feature here.

You can now give NotebookLM more instructions - here's why that's a game changer

Google's NotebookLM is one of our favorite AI tools, thanks to its organizational features and workflow improvements. However, one of the tool's weaknesses thus far has been that users couldn't control how the integrated chatbot communicated and organized their workflow documents. Also: Google's NotebookLM now lets you customize your AI podcasts in tone and length In a blog post published Wednesday, Google said users can now customize chat to adopt a specific role, voice, or goal, further tailoring their experience. Users can click the configuration icon in the chat feature and explain how they want their chat to behave. Google's examples range from asking chat to treat the user like a PhD candidate, asking probing questions and identifying pitfalls in the user's argument, to asking chat to analyze provided information from three differing perspectives. Once your chat preference is set, it remains for the duration of your exchange. This feature should deliver more satisfying results and an in-depth understanding of the provided material. Google also announced an expansion of NotebookLM's processing capabilities, conversation context, and history. Gemini's 1 million token context window is now available on NotebookLM in all plans. Google said multiturn conversation capacity is now more than sixfold what it was, offering more relevant results over longer conversations. Also: Gemini for Home is finally rolling out for early access - here's how to try it first Users can also enjoy saved chat history, another long-awaited feature. Google said saved chats will help users finish long-term projects, allowing them to close a session and open it later without losing history. In shared notebooks, only you can see your chat history. Want more stories about AI? Sign up for our AI Leaderboard newsletter. Google said all of these upgrades will begin rolling out to all users, regardless of their NotebookLM subscription, over the next week.

One of my biggest NotebookLM frustrations is finally getting fixed

Google's NotebookLM is hands down my favorite AI tool. Frankly, it's also my go-to productivity companion. It's packed with genuinely useful features and stands out from every other AI app I've tried. Thanks to its source-grounded nature, it doesn't hallucinate nearly as often as most AI models do. But for all the things NotebookLM gets right (which I could write about all day), there are still a few things about the tool that bug me. Well, it seems like today's my lucky day. One thing in particular that's bugged me a lot about the app is finally getting fixed. Your NotebookLM conversations won't disappear anymore Today, Google announced a range of improvements to NotebookLM's Chat functionality via a post on Google's The Keyword blog. Among the changes (which I'll talk about later below), Google revealed that NotebookLM will now save your conversation history. This means you can now close a notebook when you're done interacting with it, and when you open it again, your previous chats will still be there, allowing you to pick up right where you left off. Now, if you aren't a frequent NotebookLM user, you might think: don't all AI tools already do that? And you'd be right. Most AI tools indeed do. But until now, NotebookLM hasn't saved any chat history at all. This meant that every time you reopened a notebook, your past conversations were gone for good. Even when you simply refreshed your browser, your entire chat would disappear. This made using NotebookLM for ongoing projects or study sessions unnecessarily frustrating. NotebookLM currently lets you share your private notebooks with others. In any such notebooks, your conversation history will only be available to you. You can also delete your chat history anytime if you'd like to start fresh. Unfortunately, conversation history isn't out just yet. In the blog post, Google mentioned that it will start rolling out to users over the next week. NotebookLM is getting some major performance upgrades Other than conversation history, Google also announced a few improvements it made that boost performance and overall response quality. The company claims that it's seen a "50% improvement in user satisfaction with responses that use larger amounts of sources" since it started testing the improvements. First up, Google has "significantly expanded NotebookLM's processing capabilities, conversation context, and history." It's now enabled the full 1 million token context of Gemini in NotebookLM chat across both free and premium plans, which the company explains improves NotebookLM's performance when analyzing large document collections significantly. The company has also increased its capacity for "multiturn conversation more than sixfold." Additionally, Google has enhanced how NotebookLM finds information from within your sources. The AI tool now explores the sources you've uploaded from multiple angles to deliver a more satisfactory response. Google also announced that the ability to customize the Chat feature is now available to all users. While all of the performance upgrades make NotebookLM more capable under the hood, I'm most excited about the conversation history feature.

You can now tell NotebookLM exactly how to behave

We've made no secret of the fact that we really like NotebookLM. It's one of Google's best AI tools right now, and we've used it for everything from sorting apartment contracts to pulling together health explainers and gaming guides. It's not perfect, but it's genuinely useful. Google's latest update introduces several more handy upgrades, including a new way to set goals that steer chat behavior. In a blog post today, Google said it's rolling out a bunch of upgrades to NotebookLM, including this new feature for chat. You can now define a goal, voice, or role for each notebook in the same way you might give ChatGPT instructions on how to respond. For example, you might tell it to act like a research advisor, a marketing strategist, or even a game master. Once set, the chatbot maintains that tone and approach throughout the entire conversation.

NotebookLM Just Got A Massive Memory Upgrade

Google is rolling out a massive upgrade to NotebookLM. You can expect a whole new level of performance, including an 8x larger context window and 6x longer conversation memory, which were probably the most glaring issues with the app. These changes are huge, especially for anyone dealing with mountains of documents. NotebookLM chat now uses the full 1 million token context window of Gemini across all plans. This is an 8x expansion in processing capability, meaning the AI can analyze massive document collections without losing its contextual understanding, which was an issue for a while. I've had plenty of cases where my question was too long, or the response would be too long, and I got shut down. In fact, the LM didn't even help; it just avoided the question and made me gut it more and more until it could give an answer. With more tokens, that won't be an issue. Google has also increased the capacity for multi-turn conversations by more than sixfold. This makes those extended research sessions much more coherent, so you can keep the conversation going across dozens of exchanges without the AI forgetting what you were talking about. I've gone about a handful of messages before needing to remind the AI of what has been said already, so this is really helpful. One thing that stood out to me is that the system now explores your source materials from multiple angles. This just means it thinks about more than your initial prompt to give a more nuanced response. To me, it sounds like it checks sources more closely, which is great because you need that trustworthiness. A glaring issue was that whenever you leave your Notebook, even if it's to go and look at a different one, your chat history would be wiped. You can save it as notes, but that's not worth filling up your source limits. Luckily, now, your conversation history will be automatically saved to support long-term projects. So you can close a session and pick it up later without losing your chat logs. You can delete your history anytime with that refresh button on top, but keep in mind your chat is only visible to you in shared notebooks. This part will roll out throughout the week. A real game-changer for many users will be the new ability to personalize your chat with goals, roles, and voices. This makes NotebookLM less of a generic research partner and more of whatever you need. This could be anything from a rigorous professor to a storyteller helping you find new ideas. You just click the configuration icon and write how you want your chat to behave. I absolutely love NotebookLM and even pay for the subscription to do more with it. My biggest concern was that the app didn't get much token space from Google, which made it less informative and helpful than it could have been. While there are plenty of awesome features, it's clear that it had limitations when it couldn't answer questions or forgot what was in the sources. With these upgrades, it should be a lot more helpful, and I'm excited to see what I can do with it. Source: NotebookLM

NotebookLM can now be your personalized PhD advisor, marketing strategist, and more

Google's flagship learning tool just got a little bit better. NotebookLM is clearly important to Google's AI strategy, and that is evident thanks to the breakneck pace at which the tool gains new features. For reference, the tool's standout Audio Overviews feature gained video support back in late July, followed by new voices and tones for the feature in September. Now, Google is rolling out more changes -- changes meant to make NotebookLM fundamentally smarter and more powerful. For starters, the tool just received back-end improvements that should boost performance, quality, and the tool's overall contextual understanding. This was done by bringing Gemini's full one million token context window into NotebookLM's chat. This applies to all plans, and, according to Google, improves the tool's performance by allowing it to analyze large document collections at once. "Plus, we've increased our capacity for multiturn conversation more than sixfold, so you can get more coherent and relevant results over extended interactions," wrote the tech giant. Elsewhere, the tech giant has also reportedly "enhanced how NotebookLM finds information in your sources." NotebookLM will now start exploring your sources from multiple angles, essentially going beyond your initial prompt to form a nuanced response. Additionally, your NotebookLM conversations will now be automatically saved. Users can now close a session at any time and resume it later without losing their conversation history. Chat history can be deleted at any time, plus your own chat history within shared notebooks will only be visible to you. These changes will start rolling out to users over the next week. Lastly, and most importantly, NotebookLM users should now be able to personalize their chats with specific goals. This can include telling the tool to adopt a specific goal, voice, or role, "ranging from a PhD student analyzing sources to a creative storyteller exploring ideas." Need some inspiration? The tech giant shared examples of prompts you might want to try out: Treat me like a PhD candidate: This will make sure that the tool rigorously challenges every assumption and forces the user to defend their work. Act as a lead marketing strategist: This makes sure that the tool provides an immediate action plan, and that its responses are analytical and direct. Analyze the provided material from three distinct perspectives: This prompt ensures that the tool analyzes information from different angles, including angles like strict academic, a creative strategist, and a skeptical reviewer.' Act as a Game Master for a text-based simulation: This will prompt NotebookLM to "present a high-stakes scenario with a specific goal and a step limit (e.g., 10). I make all the choices. Narrate the outcomes vividly, using realistic, scenario-relevant details."

NotebookLM just got a major chat upgrade with 8x more context, better memory, and smarter responses

The improved NotebookLM's flexibility means it can take on all kinds of personas and uses the new 'Goals' system, which lets users define the AI's role NotebookLM isn't just for footnotes anymore. Google's ambitious research assistant just leveled up beyond its academic roots and into more comprehensive conversational collaboration. Google has announced a sweeping set of upgrades designed to enhance NotebookLM's ability to mimic human understanding of circumstances and appropriate interactions. The upgrades are enabled by a massive expansion of NotebookLM's context window, essentially its short-term memory. NotebookLM now supports Gemini's full context window of a million tokens across all plans. It octuples what was previously available, and this means the AI can now hold entire books, long-meeting transcripts, and sprawling project files in its virtual mind for immediate recollection and analysis at once. It's a huge leap for users juggling large document collections who want more than surface-level answers. You're no longer stuck copy-pasting fragments of a PDF into a chatbox. You can upload the whole thing, along with any supporting documents, emails, or notes you feel like adding, and NotebookLM will not only read it all but refer to it across long, coherent conversations. It's the difference between talking to a helpful stranger and working with someone who's been in the project trenches with you since day one. And the payoff is very real, according to Google. The company claims internal tests showing a 50% improvement in user satisfaction for longer, multi-source responses, thanks to this boost in attention span. The memory enhancement applies to conversations with users as well. Where you might have noticed NotebookLM losing its train of thought after you've sent just a few messages, it can now track context six times further into a dialogue. Your chat history will be kept on top of, for lack of a better term, the mind by NotebookLM, too. That means you can start a session on Tuesday, close your laptop, and pick up the same train of thought on Friday afternoon without retracing your steps. That memory stays private, too. Shared notebooks don't share chats unless you want them to. What ties all of these upgrades together is the addition of 'Goals,' essentially a way to set how the AI assistant approaches and interacts with you. You might request a virtual Ph.D thesis advisor who pokes holes in your logic, or a sounding board for a new screenplay that answers every question with another question to encourage thinking. You can even ask it to take up a guiding role through fiction, acting as a game master for tabletop roleplaying games and 'improvising' a complex narration. NotebookLM is predicated on using AI not to search all the time, but to provide insight into the research you've already done. The platform does exactly that, which is useful as AI tools become more ubiquitous in the workplace (openly or otherwise). The flexibility of NotebookLM's goal and personality setting makes this even more obvious. You're no longer adjusting tone on the fly. You're setting parameters for how this assistant should think. These changes nudge NotebookLM toward the realm of platforms like Notion AI. You can also see Google going for a personalized agent that ChatGPT's memory enables, or Perplexity's multimodal options that can absorb multiple documents at once. But NotebookLM stands out for how tightly it fuses those features into a single interface, something Google is often successful with. There's also a distinctly Google-flavored logic at work. The integrations now span over a million apps and websites. The chat interface coordinates things across those apps. So, while NotebookLM can't quite mimic the semi-independent digital agents popping up from AI providers, the foundation is being laid. The new version of NotebookLM might be the kind of tool to attract those currently wary of AI, but who dread document analysis. Arguably, what most people want from AI is a tool whose function is displayed through its form, not a black box you can't understand. NotebookLM could fill that niche. The upgrades make it easy for NotebookLM to serve more people. It can offer better study guides for students, better citation management, and improved cross-referencing. NotebookLM learns how you work, remembers what you're doing, and meets you halfway. And that's a claim it's much easier to trust than ones about "transforming the way you work."

Google's underrated NotebookLM gets big memory and research upgrades

What's happened? Google has rolled out a major update to NotebookLM, its AI-powered note-taking and research assistant. An official post by Google states that NotebookLM can now handle a larger context window up to 1 million tokens, offers 6 times longer conversational memory, and boosts response quality by about 50 %. This means NotebookLM now handles bigger document sets and more sustained chats without losing track. In addition to performance, NotebookLM now lets you customize chat goals and personas. You can tell it to act like a PhD advisor, a marketing strategist, or even a game master. The system then adapts its tone, approach, and role accordingly. Recommended Videos This is important because: NotebookLM has been steadily leveling up over the past few months. Its ability to organize information topic wise and display it in an interactive Mind Map, combined with the web search support and integration of Nano Banana, has quietly evolved NotebookLM into one of Google's most underrated AI tools. And the latest improvements can help in several ways. You can bring in much larger sets of documents and still get coherent answers, thanks to the expanded context window. Your chats and notebooks now remember far longer, making multi-stage work like research and editing smoother. Makes AI studying/planning feel more personal and structured, not random chat responses Why should I care? If your workflow involves reading many documents, writing reports, or collaborating with others, NotebookLM's update could simplify it. You can define how you want the tool to behave -- pick the role, set a goal, and then let it assist you in a more meaningful way. Whether you are prepping a thesis, running competitive analysis, or leading a creative project, this upgrade means your next session will be smoother and more aligned with you.

Incredible New NotebookLM Features That Make Research a Breeze

What if your research assistant could not only summarize information but also analyze it, organize it, and even present it for you, all in one seamless workflow? With the latest updates to Google's NotebookLM, this vision is no longer a distant dream. Once a straightforward summarization tool, NotebookLM has undergone a fantastic upgrade, introducing a suite of features that cater to professionals, students, and content creators alike. From deep research capabilities to automated slide generation, this platform is redefining how we approach complex tasks, making it easier to extract insights and communicate them effectively. Whether you're navigating dense market reports or compiling academic research, NotebookLM promises to be the ultimate productivity companion. In this feature, Universe of AI explore how NotebookLM's new tools, like structured data tables and its innovative deep research mode, are reshaping workflows across industries. You'll discover how it enables users to synthesize knowledge from diverse sources, create reusable artifacts for ongoing projects, and even generate polished presentations at the click of a button. But this isn't just about convenience, it's about unlocking new levels of clarity and efficiency in how we process information. As we delve into the platform's capabilities, you might find yourself rethinking what's possible in your own work. After all, when technology evolves to meet our most intricate needs, it doesn't just save time, it changes the way we think. One of the most impactful updates to NotebookLM is the introduction of structured artifacts, particularly data tables. These tables allow you to organize and compare information in a clear and concise manner, making them invaluable for professionals in fields such as finance, analytics, and strategic planning. For instance, when you upload documents, NotebookLM can automatically generate tables summarizing key metrics like revenue growth, market trends, or performance indicators. This feature not only saves time but also ensures that critical data is presented in an easily digestible format. Beyond data tables, the artifact system enables the creation of reusable, structured outputs that can be referenced across multiple projects. Whether you're analyzing industry trends, compiling research findings, or preparing reports, these tools provide a solid foundation for more organized and insightful work. By centralizing and structuring information, NotebookLM helps you maintain consistency and clarity across your projects. The deep research mode is a significant enhancement that enables you to delve into user-provided sources and verified web data autonomously. This feature generates comprehensive reports that include summaries, data tables, and citations, offering a structured knowledge base tailored to your research needs. For example, if you're conducting a market analysis, the tool can synthesize insights from multiple documents and external sources, presenting them in a cohesive and actionable format. This capability is particularly beneficial for researchers and analysts managing large volumes of information. By automating the labor-intensive aspects of data gathering and organization, deep research mode allows you to focus on interpreting results and drawing meaningful conclusions. It serves as a valuable assistant, helping you navigate complex datasets and uncover insights more efficiently. Expand your understanding of Google NotebookLM with additional resources from our extensive library of articles. NotebookLM introduces several features aimed at improving your workflow, making it easier to transition from research to presentation. One standout feature is automatic slide generation, which transforms your notes into presentation-ready slides complete with bullet points, charts, and images. This tool is especially useful for professionals who need to present findings quickly and effectively, saving time while maintaining a polished and professional appearance. Additionally, the platform includes an infographic creation tool that enables you to produce visual summaries, diagrams, and mind maps. These visuals simplify complex ideas, making them more accessible to diverse audiences. NotebookLM also supports the integration of various file types, such as PDFs, Google Docs, and URLs, into a unified workspace. This ensures that all your resources are consolidated in one place, reducing the need to switch between multiple tools and platforms. While NotebookLM offers a range of powerful features, it is not without its challenges. Concerns about accuracy, source bias, and privacy are particularly relevant when dealing with sensitive or external data. These issues highlight the importance of verifying the tool's outputs and being mindful of its limitations. Additionally, many of the new features are still in early testing phases, meaning they may not yet be available to all users or may require further refinement. Understanding these challenges is crucial for maximizing the tool's potential while mitigating risks. By staying informed about updates and best practices, you can navigate these limitations effectively and make the most of NotebookLM's capabilities. The versatility of NotebookLM makes it a valuable tool across a wide range of industries and use cases: These applications demonstrate how NotebookLM can adapt to the unique needs of different users, improving productivity and streamlining complex workflows. To fully use the capabilities of NotebookLM, consider implementing these strategies: By adopting these practices, you can unlock the full potential of NotebookLM and tailor its features to suit your specific needs. NotebookLM's evolution reflects Google's commitment to creating tools that bridge the gap between AI-driven summarization and advanced knowledge synthesis. Features like data tables, deep research mode, and automatic slide generation position it as a comprehensive solution for organizing, analyzing, and presenting information. While challenges such as accuracy and privacy remain, the platform's potential to transform workflows across industries is evident. As NotebookLM continues to develop, it stands out as a strong competitor in the growing landscape of AI-driven tools. Its ability to integrate seamlessly into existing workflows and address the diverse needs of its users ensures its relevance in an increasingly data-driven world.