Google Supercharges NotebookLM with Deep Research Tool and Expanded File Support

Google gives NotebookLM a major boost with powerful new features

Google's NotebookLM is already a great tool for research work, but the Mountain View tech giant continues to find new ways to make it even better. Last month, the company added a bunch of new tools to make NotebookLM your personalized PhD advisor. Now, the company has come up with another set of useful new NotebookLM features to make research work even easier. Google plans to do it by helping users find and use resources more effectively. To make it easier to find sources, NotebookLM has a new tool called Deep Research. And to help you make better use of your resources, NotebookLM now has support for more file types. What's NotebookLM's new Deep Research tool, and how does it work? As explained in its official blog post, it's your "dedicated researcher," making "organized," "insightful" reports by browsing "hundreds of websites." Not only that, but you can use it to search for specific places. You'll also be able to import the report and its sources into your notebook and use useful NotebookLM's capabilities, like Audio or Video overviews, to understand the topic better. Here is how to use the "Deep Research" feature: Open NotebookLM and go to the source panel. Select Deep Research. Enter the prompt and click the right arrow key. It'll take a few seconds to prepare the report, which will have "View detail" and "Import" options. Since it's AI doing the search work on your behalf, don't always completely trust what it does. So, instead of directly importing it after the report is generated, you should view it and add more sources if necessary before importing it to your notebook. Additionally, you'll see another option called "Fast Research" in the source panel. This is the same as the old "Discover sources" option, but with a new name that clearly mentions what it does. Use this if you want a quick search. If that's how you plan to do it, it's also worth highlighting that you can now add sources with much fewer restrictions, because NotebookLM now supports more source file types. In addition to the existing ones, you'll be able to upload Google Sheets, images, Microsoft Word documents (.docx), PDFs from Google Drive, and Drive files as URLs. You may not see these changes on NotebookLM right now, as the company plans to make them available to everyone over the next week. However, the support image file type will arrive late. Google hasn't specified a date for availability, but it's planning to introduce the feature over the next few weeks.

NotebookLM now speaks Sheets, Word, PDFs, and images for your research

Google's AI notebook upgrades its source list so you can throw real project files at it, not just plain text. What's happened? Google is turning NotebookLM into a more serious research tool. The latest update adds Deep Research plus support for the kinds of files that usually live in your Drive instead of your downloads folder. * According to a Google blog post, Deep Research can browse hundreds of sites, follow a plan based on your question, then return a structured, source-grounded report. * You can drop that report and its sources straight into a notebook, then use features like Audio or Video overviews to pull out big ideas. * NotebookLM now accepts Google Sheets, Drive files via URL, images, PDFs stored in Drive, and Microsoft Word (.docx) documents, with the rollout hitting all users over the next week. This is important because: NotebookLM is edging closer to being a proper research home. It now fits around the files and services you already use instead of asking you to rebuild everything from scratch. * You can question the same spreadsheets, drafts, and uploads you rely on for work or class, instead of copying chunks into a separate tool. * Drive links, structured data, and visual material can sit in one notebook so background reading, side notes, and reference docs stay searchable together. * When Deep Research sends its own reports and sources back into a notebook, each project can evolve into a knowledge base that survives from first idea to final write up. Recommended Videos Why should I care? For students, self learners, and anyone retraining, this looks a lot like a study tool on steroids. It brings your messy mix of PDFs, docs, and notes into one place and gives you a way to actually work through them. * You can load in lecture PDFs, data in Sheets, and a Word draft, then ask NotebookLM to explain key ideas in simpler language or build targeted summaries. * Photos of handwritten notes or printed handouts become searchable, so the material that used to stay buried in a notebook can feed into your study plan. * Deep Research can turn a fuzzy question into a clearer path through a topic, with explanations and follow ups that match what you still do not understand. Okay, so what's next? The smart move is to let AI sit at the center of your workflow instead of treating it like a side tab. If NotebookLM becomes where your projects actually live, each new course or brief can follow a repeatable pattern. * Start by pulling in what you already have, then point Deep Research at the gaps so it can build a focused reading queue instead of another pile of random links. * Use NotebookLM's more active tools to turn reports and highlights into quick quizzes or short review sessions that you can actually stick with.

NotebookLM gains automated research and wider file support

Deep Research gathers information online organizes findings and adds results directly into a users notebook. Google has updated NotebookLM with a "Deep Research" tool and expanded file type support, facilitating automated research and broader document integration. The "Deep Research" tool automates complex online research by creating research plans and browsing websites. It then presents a source-grounded report for direct incorporation into a user's notebook. Users can continue adding sources while Deep Research operates. This tool aims to build organized knowledge bases without workflow interruption. Users access "Deep Research" by selecting "Web" in the source panel and choosing their research style. "Deep Research" provides full briefings and in-depth analysis, while "Fast Research" offers quick searches. NotebookLM now supports additional file types: Google Sheets, Drive files as URLs, PDFs from Google Drive, and Microsoft Word Documents. This allows for generating summaries from spreadsheets and copying multiple Drive files as URLs. Google states these updates will be available to all users within one week. Since its late 2023 launch, NotebookLM has received functional enhancements. Earlier this year, Video Overviews were introduced, converting multimedia like raw notes and PDFs into visual presentations. This built upon the Audio Overviews feature, which generates AI podcasts from documents such as course readings. In May, Google released NotebookLM applications for Android and iOS, extending service availability beyond desktop platforms.