Imagine you have an assistant that analyzes any literature, web pages, documents, and videos, answering any of your questions. Now imagine that the assistant can evaluate hundreds of sources simultaneously. And all this is done in seconds, you just have to ask. You can ask questions both in writing and during a verbal conversation. This is not an ambitious idea for a future GenAI startup, but an already existing and reliable solution from Google — NotebookLM.

What is NotebookLM?

Google created NotebookLM as a tool that allows you to effortlessly move from asking questions to reading sources and recording your own ideas. This solution allows an individual to organize information more effectively than ever before. NotebookLM provides answers to questions based on your sources, and creates diagrams, audio, and video overviews on a given topic.

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NotebookLM Features

Notebooks

Notebooks are separate NotebookLM chats where your uploaded sources, settings, and saved notes are stored. Depending on your subscription level, you can create from 100 to 500 such notebooks.

When we go into a notebook, we see four main NotebookLM panels:

The ‘Sources’ panel manages all the information in your notebook.
The ‘Chat’ panel allows you to discuss your sources through an AI conversational interface.
The ‘Studio’ panel allows you to create new things from your sources with a single click, such as tutorials, information documents, and audio overviews.

Chat

The NotebookLM chat provides answers to your questions, makes summaries of large sources, and combines disparate information into a logically connected structure. You can be confident in the accuracy of the answer, as NotebookLM provides clear links to specific quotes in the sources.

In NotebookLM Pro, you can also configure the chat in each individual notebook, defining the response length and conversation style (you can write your own prompt for the optimal behavior of the AI bot).

Audio Overviews

Audio overviews turn your sources into interesting podcast-like conversations. They are generated in the language you have selected in the NotebookLM settings. You can change the language at any time, and your text and audio responses will reflect this, making it easy to create multilingual content or educational materials as needed.

For example, a teacher preparing a lesson on the Amazon rainforest can share resources with students in different languages, such as a documentary in Portuguese, a research paper in Spanish, and educational reports in English. Students can upload these materials and create an audio overview of the main ideas in their chosen language. This feature overcomes language barriers and makes information more accessible to everyone.

You can also listen to audio overviews while continuing to work in NotebookLM. Make queries to your sources, get quotes, and explore relevant citations without interrupting the audio.

Interactive Mode

Google is gradually developing a „join” the conversation feature. You can use your voice to ask the hosts for more information or to explain a concept differently. It’s like having a personal tutor or guide who listens carefully and then responds directly, drawing on the knowledge from your sources.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create a new audio overview.
2. Click the new interactive mode button and press „Play”.
3. While listening, click „Join”. The host will call you.
4. Ask your questions.

Video Overviews

Video overviews are the newest feature in NotebookLM, allowing you to generate a video in a presentation format with a narrator’s voiceover. The video displays the main topics of the sources in a visual format: quotes, diagrams, comparison tables, and timelines.

As of the end of July 2025, video overviews are only available in English. Given the speed at which language options are being implemented in NotebookLM, we can hope that support for Ukrainian video overviews will appear quite soon.

Interactive Mind Maps

New interactive mind maps allow users to navigate complex topics in their notebooks, explore new connections, and gain a deeper understanding of their materials. For example, a biology student working on a dissertation about the decline of the coral reef ecosystem can upload scientific articles and view a mind map with topics like „Ocean Acidification,” „Rising Sea Temperatures,” „Pollution,” and „Overfishing.”

The Mind Map feature in NotebookLM offers users several key benefits:

Enhances learning efficiency by providing clear visual summaries of sources
Facilitates quick navigation to specific topics in complex information
Helps discover new connections between different pieces of information

Notes

In the „Notes” section, users can save necessary information: audio overviews, notes, and mind maps. You can also generate materials using ready-made templates, such as „frequently asked questions,” „study guide,” or „timeline.”

The familiar „share” button for Google Workspace users

Many NotebookLM users already share their notebooks with classmates, colleagues, students, and friends using the standard „share” interface.

You can publicly share a notebook with anyone who uses NotebookLM using a single link. Click the „Share” button in the upper right corner of the notebook and set the access to „Anyone with the link.”

Viewers will not be able to edit the original content, but they can still interact with the public notebook by asking questions or viewing created content, such as audio overviews, FAQs, or information documents.

Who will find NotebookLM useful?

It is very difficult to list all the useful applications of NotebookLM. Here is just a small part of the possible use cases:

An employee, especially a new one, can use the corporate knowledge base in NotebookLM to instantly get answers to common questions about working at the company. With instant analysis of instructions, policies, and internal regulations, they get a personal assistant that helps them adapt faster and avoid mistakes.
A cybersecurity specialist can create detailed technical documents (whitepapers) based on many protocols, incident reports, and regulatory documents. NotebookLM helps structure information, highlight the most important threats and recommendations, paying attention to critical details.
A lawyer can analyze large volumes of legal documents, contracts, and court cases. NotebookLM will help quickly find relevant precedents, compare the terms of different agreements, identify potential risks, and prepare a concise case summary for a client or management.
A sales manager can create an interactive sales playbook by uploading product descriptions, customer success stories, and competitor information into NotebookLM. This will allow the team to quickly prepare for meetings, find answers to complex customer questions, and develop effective negotiation strategies.
A project manager can upload all project documentation, correspondence with the team, and progress reports. This will allow them to track progress, quickly find necessary information about any stage of the project, and prepare reports for stakeholders.
An entrepreneur can upload customer reviews from various platforms, survey results, and CRM data. The tool will help identify key customer needs and „pain points,” which will become the basis for developing new products, improving service, or launching a targeted marketing campaign.
A journalist can quickly research an entire archive of electronic sources, interviews, and reports. NotebookLM will help identify key quotes, find connections between different documents, check facts, and generate a draft of an article or investigation.
A marketer can upload data on past advertising campaigns, target audience research, and competitor content. NotebookLM will help generate ideas for new content, create a FAQ for customers, develop personalized email newsletters, and even suggest a script for an advertising video.
A student can upload lectures, scientific articles, and notes for NotebookLM to turn them into a structured study guide, generate self-assessment tests, and answer specific questions about the material, significantly speeding up exam preparation.

What sources does NotebookLM understand?

NotebookLM allows you to upload almost all formats necessary for analyzing text information:

Copied text (via a special field)
Google Docs and Google Slides files
PDF documents
Files in .txt and .md formats
Audio recordings (with a clear voice)
Links to web pages
Links to YouTube videos or your own videos

For NotebookLM, conversational-style videos are better, as visual information recognition from video is not currently available.

Also available for NotebookLM Enterprise users:

DOCX (Microsoft Word documents)
PPTX (Microsoft PowerPoint documents)
XLSX (Microsoft Excel documents)

Difference between NotebookLM, NotebookLM Pro, and NotebookLM Enterprise

NotebookLM Features:

With NotebookLM you get 100 notebooks, each containing up to 50 sources (up to 500k words each), as well as daily limits of 50 chat queries and 3 audio generations.
NotebookLM uses the latest Gemini models.
Add PDF files, website URLs, Google Docs and Slides, YouTube videos, and other files.
Ask questions and get detailed answers with citations.
Create audio summaries.

Additional benefits of NotebookLM Pro:

Upgrading to NotebookLM Pro increases the limits to 500 notebooks, each with 300 sources, as well as 500 daily chat queries and 20 daily audio generations.
Customize the style and length of your notebooks’ responses.
Shared notebooks for the team and usage statistics.
Additional privacy and security, Google Workspace commitments regarding the security of your data extend to NotebookLM.

What NotebookLM Enterprise provides:

Unlike other plans, NotebookLM Enterprise is configured in the Google Cloud console. It can be used separately, but it is usually used as part of a larger knowledge base infrastructure — Google Agentspace.

Among the advantages of NotebookLM Enterprise are:

Maximum cybersecurity functionality (all data is stored within the Google Cloud project, VPC Service Controls and Google Cloud IAM controls capabilities, etc.).
Integration with Google Agentspace, which allows creating custom AI agents for various tasks and integrating third-party solutions (Jira, Slack, Outlook, etc.). Learn more about Google Agentspace.
Additional available formats: DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX.

How much does a NotebookLM subscription cost?

NotebookLM is a free tool, but if you require corporate data security and a larger number of sources and notebooks, you can get NotebookLM Pro as part of a Google Workspace subscription. You can see the prices for corporate Google Workspace plans on our website.

NotebookLM Pro is also part of the personal Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra subscriptions.

To get an individual cost estimate for Google Workspace, NotebookLM Pro, or Enterprise, contact the specialists at Wise IT. We will be happy to provide you with a free consultation and answer all your questions: