Google's AI-Powered NotebookLM Note-Taking App Launches for Users Across the US

Google’s AI-powered note-taking app, NotebookLM, is now available to all users in the United States aged 18 and older, as announced on Friday. This experimental app is introducing a range of new features and incorporating Gemini Pro, Google’s advanced large language model, to enhance document understanding and reasoning.

When you upload documents to NotebookLM, the app can automatically generate summaries and propose relevant follow-up questions about the content. Unlike standard chatbots that pull from vast amounts of unrelated data, NotebookLM focuses exclusively on the documents you provide.

Google is expanding the app's functionality beyond just summarization and question generation. NotebookLM now includes tools that help users organize their notes into structured writing projects. For example, you can choose a set of notes and ask NotebookLM to create new content, such as a script outline, an email newsletter, or a draft marketing plan.

Additionally, NotebookLM can suggest next steps based on your current activity. If you highlight a section while reading, the app will automatically offer to summarize it into a new note or clarify its content. If you're composing a note, NotebookLM can refine your writing or suggest related ideas from your sources.

The tech giant is introducing a new noteboard feature, allowing users to pin quotes from conversations or personal notes. This enhancement was a popular request from users who wanted a way to save their interactions with NotebookLM effectively.

Other improvements include the ability to create independent notes when adding new entries, rather than consolidating them into a single notepad. Clicking on a citation number in a chat response or saved note will now take you directly to the original source quotation.

For those who want to focus solely on note-taking, you can hide the source. If you’d like to concentrate NotebookLM’s AI on specific sources, you can interact with a selected set of sources through the sidebar. Moreover, PDF support and copied text functionality have been added, enabling users to copy and paste text to create a new source and edit its title thereafter.

In conjunction with these new features, Google has increased usage limits: notebooks can now contain up to 20 sources, while each source can accommodate up to 200,000 words.

This announcement follows the five-month limited launch of NotebookLM, which was originally showcased as Project Tailwind at Google I/O earlier this year. Google highlighted the app's potential utility for students in organizing their lecture notes and coursework materials.