You may know Steven Johnson as an writer. He’s written a variety of books, many centered on the science of how we expect and the historical past of innovation. However he’s additionally a Googler who has labored on the NotebookLM staff from the start of the venture two years in the past. “Merely put, NotebookLM is a device for understanding issues,” Steven says. Consider it as your digital note-taking and analysis assistant: NotebookLM takes data, digests and analyzes it so that you could glean extra from it. It’s designed for that “deeper dive” you could must take into a subject — or a number of matters without delay.
With NotebookLM, you create particular person notebooks devoted to a subject or venture. You may add as much as 50 “sources” with as much as 25 million phrases — all from issues like PDFs, Google Docs, web sites and YouTube movies. Then, NotebookLM makes use of Gemini 1.5’s multimodal capabilities to evaluate and make connections between the sources you’ve added. You may ask questions in regards to the content material or ask NotebookLM to format it in a particular approach — it can even present citations that hyperlink again to essentially the most related authentic passages in your sources. And alongside the way in which, your non-public data isn’t shared or used to coach the mannequin.
In case you’re simply getting began, strive these eight ideas from Steven to get essentially the most out of NotebookLM.
1. Experiment together with your current paperwork — even when they’re random
One of many first issues Steven suggests new NotebookLM customers do is add their 10 most up-to-date paperwork into one pocket book and begin experimenting by asking questions. Even when your most up-to-date paperwork are unrelated and completely random, it’s a good way to check run what NotebookLM can do. Whether or not you recognize the fabric within the paperwork right down to the letter, or it’s all fairly new to you, NotebookLM will assist you uncover some fascinating insights.
2. Create one fundamental pocket book after which determine topic-based notebooks from there
Steven suggests conserving what he calls an “all the things pocket book,” which you load up with sources that embrace the final information you’re employed with most days. The sources may be inspirational quotes from books you learn, or the core paperwork that describe the corporate you’re employed for, or all of your brainstorming concepts that you simply’ve captured through the years. “I do numerous open-ended considering and exploring of concepts in my ‘all the things’ pocket book,” Steven says. Nevertheless it’s equally vital to create topic- or project-based notebooks as nicely. “I’ve bought a pocket book devoted solely to the work we do constructing NotebookLM,” Steven explains. “It’s bought all of the press releases, new function descriptions and vital inner docs we write as a staff.” By conserving all these associated sources in a single pocket book, Steven successfully has a personalised AI that’s virtually like having one other member of the staff. “I can go in there and kind one thing like, ‘Draft the define of a weblog submit for that function we had been discussing final week,’ and Pocket book is aware of precisely what to do.”
3. Use NotebookLM to attach the dots from completely different supplies
NotebookLM is extraordinarily helpful for conditions the place you might want to handle, join and synthesize data from a number of sources. “All of us have this downside the place we’re engaged on one thing, and the knowledge we want is scattered throughout desktop folders, tabs and wherever else,” Steven says. That is what NotebookLM is made for, he explains: connecting all these scattered dots.
It may be particularly useful as a subsequent step after utilizing Gemini and Gems. After you brainstorm or produce other open-ended conversations in these instruments, NotebookLM can take the outcomes and switch them into one thing simple to comply with. Steven affords the instance of engaged on a slide deck. Perhaps you begin the method by brainstorming with Gemini, which leads you to open just a few tabs of articles, avoid wasting design inspo photos and put some notes in a Google doc. You may then feed all of that into NotebookLM, which can synthesize the knowledge into an easy-to-digest format so you’ll be able to reference all the things in a single place while you get to the stage of constructing your presentation in Google Slides.
4. Begin with the steered questions
When you’ve added content material to NotebookLM, it’s time to begin asking questions — which could go away you stumped. Equally to ideas we shared about utilizing the Gemini-powered aspect panel in Workspace instruments, Steven says NotebookLM’s steered questions are an important useful resource. “The mannequin will really assist you ask questions that information you thru the fabric for some time till you consider one thing you wish to ask,” he explains. You could find some starter questions within the “Pocket book Information” that seems after you add your first sources. Plus, while you begin asking questions, NotebookLM will recommend follow-up queries, too, based mostly on what you’ve already requested and what you uploaded.
5. Ask NotebookLM to ship data in numerous methods
One thing that got here out of early testing, Steven says, was the necessity for NotebookLM to indicate data in numerous codecs. “Everybody processes data otherwise, and even simply prefers to see data introduced in numerous methods,” he explains. Utilizing the Pocket book Information function, NotebookLM can flip your uploaded content material into an FAQ, a briefing doc, a timeline, a desk of contents, a examine information — or the favored new Audio Overview, which really transforms your data into an attractive dialog between two AI “hosts.” Attempt completely different choices each to see what works greatest to your personal studying functions in addition to for presenting data to others.
6. Don’t draw back from artistic makes use of
NotebookLM is a tremendous useful resource for work and faculty tasks (the staff really simply launched a pilot program for NotebookLM Enterprise for collaborating inside a office). Nevertheless it’s additionally an important device for plenty of artistic makes use of exterior the workplace or classroom. “We’re seeing lots of people utilizing it for help with writing fantasy and sci-fi novels or creating video games the place they’re engaged on world constructing and complex backstories,” Steven says. Perhaps to your screenplay, you jotted down some notes in a doc, saved numerous webpages and took photographs and movies as inspiration. “There’s all of this data that may be arduous to maintain straight,” Steven says. “You may put all of that stuff right into a single pocket book and ask issues like, ‘What was the cope with that one character?’ Or ‘Remind me which characters reside the place?’”
Steven significantly likes that you could ask NotebookLM for artistic enter with questions like, “Which characters do you assume are most compelling?” or, “What are your favourite elements?” “It’s like having the ability to management F for ‘interestingness’!” he says.
7. Flip your sources into Audio Overviews
You need to positively flip every of these 10 paperwork you begin with, or no matter else you add, into an Audio Overview, Steven says. “After ready a couple of minutes for it to generate, you’ll have a really entertaining, form of mind-blowing audio dialog about no matter you uploaded!” Steven says. And the staff has simply launched a brand new function in Audio Overviews that permits you to modify the format of the dialog. Simply hit “Customise” within the Audio Overviews panel and enter a brief description of what you need the hosts to deal with out of your sources. “You may also steer them by way of the method of the extent of sophistication you need from the Overview,” Steven explains. “I’ve been importing my very own writing and asking them to present me constructive criticism about my work.”
