NotebookLM Has Received a New Name and a Number of Other Changes.
NotebookLM may not be the best-known of Google’s many AI products, but having been introduced as Project Tailwind in May 2023, it’s been around almost as long as Google’s Gemini chatbot (originally called Bard, you might remember).
Perhaps seeking to make its AI toolset less confusing, Google is renaming NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook. However, if you like the app as is, don’t panic—otherwise, little will change.
“It’s still a standalone product… but it will now perform more functions within the Google ecosystem, including within the Gemini app and Google Search,” Google explains. These “enhanced capabilities” will begin with your notebooks appearing in AI-powered Google Search for reference, a feature that will launch soon.
Google’s post also mentioned that Pro plan users ($19.99 per month) will soon receive updates released last month , which were previously only available to Ultra plan users ($99.99 or $199.99 per month).
These updates include a dedicated cloud computer for each notebook you create, allowing for deeper source code analysis and the ability to write and execute code directly in the program (via Google Antigravity). This also means expanded app capabilities in each of your notebooks, including the ability to create PDFs, diagrams, and slideshows, as well as edit them using tooltips.
Where the constellation Gemini ends and the “Gemini Notebook” begins.
It’s understandable that you might be confused about the differences between the standard Gemini AI chatbot app, available on the web and mobile, and the recently rebranded Gemini Notebook—especially if you haven’t used the latter much.
They run on the same set of Gemini AI models and can perform many of the same tasks, such as searching the web and summarizing documents. Once you create notebooks in Gemini Notebook, you can also access them in the main Gemini app , further complicating matters.
Gemini Notebook’s distinctive feature is that it’s essentially a research tool . You upload a variety of sources, from YouTube videos to PDFs, and then Gemini Notebook runs queries and summarizes these sources, adding links to them.
As we’ve written before, you can turn your notes into audio podcasts and video overviews , as well as mind maps, flashcards, infographics, and slideshows. However, unlike the main Gemini app, it can’t create images or videos from a single request without one or more sources to work with.
As a side note: If you’re already a NotebookLM/Gemini Notebook power user, you might have missed the latest feature update released to all users a couple of weeks ago. It’s called “Video Overview,” and it adds a shorter, vertical video format to your summary settings: tap “Video Overview,” then “Brief” to use it.