AI-powered study tools have been making headlines for over a year now. After trying nearly all of them, I haven't been particularly impressed with any, except for Google's AI-powered note-taking app, NotebookLM.
The tool was first introduced in July 2023 as an experimental project by Google Labs under the code name "Project Tailwind." Since then, Google has dropped its "experimental" status, and the developers have clearly put in significant effort to make it one of the most powerful AI-driven research tools available today.
While the tool still definitely has its limitations, if you haven't tried it yet, you're seriously missing out. Here are three reasons why.
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3 NotebookLM stays grounded in your sources
Finally, AI that doesn't make stuff up
One of the biggest reasons why AI tools have received so much criticism, especially from academia, is their tendency to "hallucinate" information. When Google announced NotebookLM, the company explicitly highlighted that the key difference between NotebookLM and other traditional AI chatbots is source-grounding.
According to the blog, NotebookLM lets you "ground" it within the notes and sources you upload. This means you have a personalized AI that's only familiar with the information you provide. As a result, you don't have to worry about AI fabricating false answers when you ask questions or use any of NotebookLM's features, like Audio Overviews.
It will only draw information directly from your sources and won't rely on the internet for extra details. If you ever doubt an answer NotebookLM gave, you can simply hover over the citation number that appears alongside a response. This will reveal the exact text it used to generate the answer, and clicking it will take you to the quoted text in the Sources panel.
If you ask the tool something not mentioned in your sources (or your conversation history for that particular notebook), it will simply tell you that it cannot answer your question. This is far better than other AI tools, which often agree with you or tell you what you want to hear by fabricating information.
While you could initially only ground NotebookLM in specific Google Docs when the company first launched the tool, you can now upload PDFs, website URLs, public YouTube video links, and copy-pasted text. NotebookLM can also use Gemini's capabilities to search the web and find up to 10 sources for you. Thankfully, it seems that the tool will only search the web to find those specific sources, not to generate responses or pull additional information from the internet.
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2 Its free version does more than you'd expect
Free, functional, and actually good
Given how quickly AI tools are developing and how many new ones surface every other day, it's rare to find one with a free version that's actually worth using. NotebookLM is an exception. I've been using the tool since shortly after it launched, and not once have I felt the need to upgrade to its paid version, NotebookLM Plus. While the Plus version was initially only available for Google Workspace users, it's now included in the Google One AI Premium subscription for $20/month.
On the free version, you can create up to 100 notebooks, each with a maximum of 50 sources. The sources themselves can have up to 500,000 words. You also get 50 chat queries and can generate three Audio Overviews, AI-generated podcasts based on the sources you provide.
If you upgrade to NotebookLM Plus, you can create up to 500 notebooks, each with up to 300 sources. You get 500 chat queries and can generate 20 Audio Overviews. I'm a full-time student, and I can't imagine a day when I'd ever need to generate 20 AI podcasts or run 500 chats.
You can also share a notebook with Chat-only access and customize how the AI responds to you. Finally, if you share your AI-powered notebook with others, you can track how many users have viewed it per day and how many queries they've made each day of the week.
If you're using NotebookLM for studying or research, why would you need to track hundreds of viewers or manage hundreds of sources per notebook? Unless you're running an entire content team out of NotebookLM, the free tier already feels generous and more than enough for everyday use.
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1 Features go beyond basic AI summaries
Summaries are just the start
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What makes NotebookLM stand out from any tool I've used before is its features. With a minimum of six different courses per semester, I have hundreds of lecture slides and notes to review.
As a full-time student who also has multiple work gigs to handle, the only way I'd possibly be able to go through each one is if I had more than twenty-four hours in a day. This is why NotebookLM's Audio Overviews feature has been nothing short of a game-changer.
Using Gemini 1.5, it can convert any source(s) you provide into an engaging podcast where two virtual hosts discuss every important detail from your sources. While the Audio Overviews aren't a comprehensive look at a topic, in NotebookLM's words, they're a reflection of the sources you upload.
While the AI-generated podcast helps you understand how ideas and concepts from different sources in your notebook connect, the tool also has a Mind Maps feature to help you do just that, even more comprehensively. It visually summarizes all your sources in a branching diagram.
If you aren't a fan of podcasts or Mind Maps, NotebookLM also has excellent summarization features. As soon as you upload sources to a notebook, a concise summary of all your sources appears in the center of your screen.
Want a summary of each individual source? NotebookLM's got you covered there, too.
As mentioned earlier, you can also ask the tool any question related to your sources, and it'll answer with no fluff at all. You can also generate different content based on your source, including Study Guides, Briefing Docs, FAQs, and Timelines.
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Run, not walk, toward NotebookLM
Trust me, if you're sleeping on NotebookLM, you're seriously missing out. As I mentioned, its free tier is incredibly powerful and more than enough for the average user. So realistically, what do you even have to lose by giving it a shot?
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