Google's NotebookLM AI Podcast Generator: A Game-Changer in Content Creation

Google's AI podcast generator NotebookLMjust got a major update - and now you can play the producer

Google's incredible podcast generator, NotebookLM, is one of the wildest AI tools we've ever used, and it just got a massive upgrade that makes it even scarier. Today, Google announced huge updates to its AI podcast tool, which means you can now guide the conversation and direct the hosts - yes, that's right, you can now play the role of producer in an AI-generated podcast! Before today's update, the tool built with Gemini 1.5 would simply convert any text, audio, or video you fed it into a discussion between two hosts - it was really impressive and lifelike but there was no way to guide the conversation. Now, Google has added a "Customize" button that lets you steer the discussion and give the hosts show notes. Google says to "think of it like slipping the AI hosts a quick note right before they go on the air, which will change how they cover your material." NotebookLM was already dystopian enough, and almost impossible to discern whether the hosts chatting were real or AI, but now with this new ability, we might start to see full AI-generated podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts (that's if they don't exist already). Want to try AI podcast generation for yourself? Check out how to use NotebookLM. Google may have just casually dropped the biggest NotebookLM update to date but guiding the conversation isn't the only new addition. A new background listening feature allows you to listen to NotebookLM Audio Overviews while working on other NotebookLM projects. That might not sound like a huge deal but considering it can take a long time to generate each audio clip, making multiple clips at once and listening to them is a significant improvement. Combined, both new NotebookLM features take the already mind-blowing AI tool and make it substantially better. I wasn't sold on the idea until I heard this incredible adaptation of my colleague's blog. If you want to hear just how realistic AI can be, listen below:

Google's NotebookLM Now Lets You Customize Its AI Podcasts

The NotebookLM tool generates AI-hosted audio podcasts on any topic. Its latest update allows users to enter prompts to personalize the output. I tried it out. Google just added a new customization tool for the viral AI podcasts in its NotebookLM software. I got early access and tested it out using Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis as the source material, spending a few hours generating podcasts about the seminal novella -- some of them more unhinged than others. Released by Google Labs in 2023 as an experimental, AI-focused writing tool, NotebookLM has been enjoying a resurgence in user interest since early September, when the developers added an option to generate podcast-like conversations between two AI voices -- one male-sounding and one female-sounding -- from uploaded documents. While these audio "deep dives" can be used for studying and productivity, many of the viral clips online focused on the entertainment factor of asking robot hosts to discuss bizarre or highly personal source documents, like a LinkedIn profile. Raiza Martin, who leads the NotebookLM team inside of Google Labs, is pumped to give users more control over the content of these synthetic podcasts. "It's the number one feature we've heard people request," she says. "They want to provide a little bit of feedback as to what the deep dive focuses on." According to Martin, this is the first update of many coming down the pipeline. Nearing the one year anniversary of its full launch, NotebookLM is also dropping the "experimental" tag -- a sign it's not headed towards the perpetual Google graveyard of abandoned software, or at least for now. Martin says this label was removed since the team hit internal milestones for overall quality, user retention, and interface standards. She also says users can now expect a higher level of stability from the software. To make an AI podcast using NotebookLM, open up the Google Labs website and start a New Notebook. Then, add any source documents you would like to be used for the audio output. These can be anything from files on your computer to YouTube links. Next, when you click on the Notebook guide, you'll now see the option to generate a deep dive as well as the option to customize it first. Choose Customize and add your prompt for how you'd like the AI podcast to come out. The software suggests that you consider what sections of the sources you'd like highlighted, larger topics you want further explored, or different intended audiences who you want the message to reach. One tip Martin shares for trying out the new feature is to generate the Audio Overview without changes, and while you're listening to this first iteration, write down any burning questions you have or topics you wish it expanded on. Afterwards, use these notes as a launching pad to create your prompts for NotebookLM and regenerate that AI podcast with your interests in mind. I uploaded an 80-page file of Kafka's famous work of existential literature -- in it, the main character wakes up one morning to find that he has turned into a gigantic bug -- to see how the customization will work for NotebookLM users. The first Audio Overview it generated, sans prompt customization, was a solid, albeit broad overview of what happens in the novella, as well as some discussion of its key themes. Nothing groundbreaking, but decent. Thinking like a nerdy college English major, which I definitely was, my first prompt adjustment was for the podcast discussion to focus more on themes of alienation and overbearing bureaucracy found in the book. With the extra nudge, this output from NotebookLM did an admirable job of zeroing in on these motifs and generating a discussion that sounded similar to what I've heard before in college classrooms. It was a bit meandering, but totally listenable.

I AI-generated some podcasts - and the results are uncanny

Google's new tool NotebookLM lets you create podcasts at the click of the button. They're way more realistic than you'd think ... Anyone who grew up watching The Terminator or The Matrix knows that AI poses an existential threat to humanity. As the robots become smarter, it was thought, they will inevitably replace us, either by destroying us or mining us for resources. However, the age of AI is now here, and the truth is so much worse than anything from a dystopian sci-fi. You see, AI has decided to give us more podcasts. The world needs more podcasts like it needs to be kicked by a horse. Everyone's got a podcast. Gyles Brandreth has a podcast. Paul Giamatti has a podcast. Your four or five worst friends all have podcasts, blathering endlessly into an environment already cluttered with too much content. Now Google has just created the first AI podcasts, and they're as fascinating as they are superfluous. NotebookLM is basically ChatGPT but for audio. You upload a bunch of sources - documents, websites, YouTube videos - and it parses all the information, then creates a bewilderingly human-sounding discussion about them. Two hosts, one male and one female, chat about whatever subject you've given them in an uncannily podcasty way. Their speech is full of ums and ahs. They hesitate, they talk over each other. They, like, kind of like talk like this all the time? It's so imperfect that you can quickly forget you're listening to a couple of robots repeating crap from the internet. NotebookLM bills itself as a study resource, which makes sense. If you want to summarise a lot of information in a way that keeps your attention, or if you want to take in information on a run or a drive, then it's great. Before long, people will prepare for exams by ramming their textbooks into something like NotebookLM then pottering about with earplugs in. But if you want to make a podcast on any subject you like, it can do that, too. Rivals starts on Disney+ this week, and it has already generated acres of coverage, so I fed in a few interviews on the show to see what the hosts would come up with. The resulting five-minute podcast was uncanny. In it, the hosts treated the show like it was something they had just organically fallen upon. "All right, get ready, because we are diving into Rivals!" the female host announces at the start, to a volley of agreeable muttering from her male counterpart. They discuss the attitudes of the 1980s, its sexism and racism, and applaud the show's willingness to directly confront them. It makes it sound as though Rivals is a brilliant, pioneering piece of agenda-setting television. The problem is that it isn't really like that at all. It's camp fun with loads of nudity. However, the sources I fed in were interviews with actors from the show, who are understandably more keen to talk about real-world issues than what it was like to whip their bits out all the time. And so that's what the podcast is. A more accurate version would have fed in every available piece of information - interviews, reviews, show notes, maybe even the full source novel - and created a 360-degree view of the series. Instead, it was an extremely confident presentation based on limited information. And in the end, isn't that all a podcast is anyway? After that I decided to make the type of podcast the world needs least of, which is two people bibbling on about conspiracy theories. Admittedly, I could have done a better job here, finding flat-Earth forums and Facebook groups made up of people who still blame Covid on 5G masts. Instead, I just threw in a bunch of stuff from Wikipedia and Reddit, and found myself surprised by how measured the tone of the resulting audio was. It ended up being a fairly eye-opening 14-minute episode about things such as confirmation bias and the human impulse to understand the world. At one point, they start to list prevalent conspiracy theories, but stop because - as the male host says - "My brain would literally explode." The existence of NotebookLM raises a lot of questions. Will it make people too lazy to read their own research? Can it be fully trusted? What will humanity do with all the millions of newly unemployed podcasters roaming the Earth? But as a way of disseminating information for beginners in a naturalistic way, it's sort of, like, brilliant.

Google's AI Podcast Tool Is Dazzling. But Is It Useful?

Technologists, scientists and OpenAI founder Sam Altman have been praising a feature added in September by NotebookLM, a free online research tool that Alphabet Inc.'s core business released last year. Uploading documents to the site allows users to answer questions about their content or synthesize it into summaries, briefing notes and more. Now it can also turn that content into an eerily human-sounding podcast. The male and female AI-generated hosts not only have sonorous, FM-radio voices but punctuate their conversations with "ums," pauses and catchy phrases like "get this." The banter sounds so seamless that you'd be forgiven for thinking the conversation was between people.