Google NotebookLM

A source-based research assistant

Google NotebookLM helps you work through material you provide, rather than treating a general web search as the starting point. Add sources such as PDFs, websites, YouTube links, or text documents, then ask questions about what they contain. It suits students, researchers, writers, and anyone who needs to turn a pile of notes into something easier to understand.

Read, ask, and check

The app keeps your sources together in a workspace and can produce summaries or respond to questions about them. Answers include inline citations, making it easier to return to the relevant passage and check the result. That source-focused approach is useful when you want help organising information without losing sight of the material behind it.

• Collect PDFs, web pages, YouTube sources, and text in one place.
• Ask follow-up questions about the sources you have added.
• Generate summaries for long or unfamiliar material.
• Use citations to trace answers back to their source.

For listening as well as reading

NotebookLM can also turn source material into Audio Overviews: podcast-style discussions presented by AI voices. This gives you another way to review a topic when reading is inconvenient, while questions and prompts can steer attention toward particular subjects. The mobile app includes audio controls suited to listening away from a desk.

At a glance

Google LLC publishes NotebookLM in the Productivity category. It has a 4.82 rating from 132,099 reviews and is listed at 10,000,000+ installs. The app is a better fit for source-led study and research than for open-ended conversation: its value depends on the quality and usefulness of the material you bring into each notebook.