Google's AI-powered NotebookLM goes global with enhanced features
Google has announced the worldwide expansion of its AI-powered note-taking assistant, NotebookLM, to over 200 new countries. The platform, initially launched as Project Tailwind in June last year for a select user base, uses Google's multimodal LLM Gemini 1.5 Pro to generate summaries and answer questions from uploaded documents. "Your data does stay private to you," said Raiza Martin, senior product manager for AI at Google Labs.
NotebookLM's new features and language support
The updated version of NotebookLM now supports content sourcing from Google Slides and web URLs, in addition to Google Docs, PDFs, and text files. This expansion allows users to create notes or ask questions about their documents or explore online material. The interface language support has been broadened to 108 languages including Arabic, Assamese, Bengali, Cantonese, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, and Hinglish.
Google adds inline citations and Notebook Guide to NotebookLM
Google has introduced inline citations in NotebookLM, enabling users to view supporting passages in their sources, fact-check AI-generated responses, and read the original text for more context. Previously, citations were located below the responses generated by the assistant. Additionally, Google has launched the Notebook Guide feature that helps convert content into various formats such as FAQs, briefing documents or study guides.
Future integrations and competition for NotebookLM
Martin mentioned that Google anticipates future integrations with traditional note-taking apps like Evernote and Google Keep. The global rollout of NotebookLM is expected to compete directly with dozens of platforms that currently let users use GenAI tools to answer their questions and summarize PDFs. Despite most of these platforms charging for their services, Google is providing this service for free.
