NotebookLM

NotebookLM is Google's AI research notebook, and since July 2026 it's called Gemini Notebook. You give it your own sources (PDFs, web pages, YouTube videos, Google Drive files, pasted text) and it answers questions from those sources only, with a citation on every claim. It also turns them into an Audio Overview, the podcast-style conversation it became famous for, plus flashcards, quizzes, mind maps and reports. Is NotebookLM free? Yes: a Google Account gets you 100 notebooks with up to 50 sources each. There's no separate NotebookLM subscription; higher limits come with Google AI plans, from $4.99 a month in the US.

I tested it with a single source to see the thing that matters most: whether it sticks to what you gave it.

NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook

On July 16, 2026, Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook. Google calls it the same standalone product, and the old notebooklm.google.com address redirects to notebook.google.com. If you still search for "NotebookLM," you're in the right place: it's the same tool with a longer name.

What changed is where it shows up. Google says your notebooks are also available inside the Gemini app, and the paid Google AI plans now list Gemini Notebook as one of their benefits.

My test: one source, two questions

I signed in with a Google Account on the free plan and clicked New notebook. Gemini Notebook opened a three-column workspace (Sources on the left, the chat in the middle, the Studio on the right) and put the "add sources" window right in front of me. You can search the web for sources from there, upload files, add websites or YouTube links, import books from Google Play Books, pick files from Drive or paste text.

I chose Websites and pasted the address of the Wikipedia article on the Golden Gate Bridge. The window warns you about the limits of web sources: only the visible text of a page is imported, paywalled articles aren't supported, and for YouTube it takes only the transcript of public videos. Once I clicked Insert, the notebook had named itself "Golden Gate Bridge History and Design," written a one-paragraph summary of the source and suggested three questions to start with.

Answers that only come from your sources

My first question had two parts: why is the bridge painted orange, and how many workers died building it? The answer was right on both counts according to the article: the color is International Orange, chosen by consulting architect Irving Morrow because it fits the surroundings and stands out in fog (it even mentioned that the US Navy had suggested black and yellow stripes), and 11 workers died, ten of them on February 17, 1937, when a scaffold broke through the safety net.

What makes it different from a regular chatbot is the little numbers after each sentence. Each one ties the sentence to the passage in your source it came from, so checking an answer doesn't mean another search.

So I did exactly that: "What's the best place to eat near the bridge?" Wikipedia doesn't rank restaurants, and Gemini Notebook said so: "the sources do not specify or rank the 'best' place to eat." Then it listed the two places the article does mention, the Round House Café and a café by the Welcome Center, each with its citation. No invented favorite, no review from somewhere else. That's the behavior you want when the sources are your contracts, your class notes or your company's reports.

Under the chat box there's a permanent reminder: "Gemini Notebook can make mistakes, so double-check it." With the citations, at least double-checking is easy.

Audio Overviews: the podcast feature

This is the feature most people come for. In the Studio panel, Audio Overview opens a window where you pick a format: Deep Dive (two hosts in a lively conversation, the default), Brief (one speaker, a quick overview that Google's help center says runs under two minutes), Critique (an expert review of your material) and Debate (two hosts with different views). You can also choose the language (Google says there are more than 80), the length (Short, Default or Long) and type what the hosts should focus on, with ready-made suggestions like "Engineering Marvels" for my bridge.

At the bottom there's an AI Usage bar showing what you've already used and what this generation will cost. It's a handy gauge, since Google doesn't publish the free limits as a number. If you're out of allowance, Generate later queues the job instead; Google says it may take a couple of hours, and it's web only.

I kept the default Deep Dive, set the length to Short and clicked Generate now. The Studio said "Generating Audio Overview… Come back in a few minutes," and it meant it: about five minutes later the episode was ready, under a title the tool picked for itself, "Why the Golden Gate Bridge Hums." Short, it turns out, is relative: my Deep Dive came out at just over seven minutes. You can play it right there in the Studio.

If you want something you can listen to between two meetings, try Brief instead. And if the hosts drift into parts you don't care about, the focus box is where you steer them.

Everything else in the Studio

The Studio panel turns the same sources into other formats: Video Overview, Mind Map, Reports (interactive reports were the "New!" item the day I tried it), Flashcards, Quiz and Data Table. I opened the Quiz options to see how much control you get: the number of questions (Fewer, Standard or More), the difficulty (Easy, Medium or Hard), the language, which sources to use and a box for the topic. The same AI Usage bar sits at the bottom, and it's a good reality check: after my two questions, the "already used" part of the bar was a sliver; after one Audio Overview, it was roughly a quarter.

On the home page, besides your own notebooks, there's a row of "Featured notebooks," public notebooks built around full books and topics, and Collections to group your notebooks.

One more thing for anything visual you make here: according to Google's help center, images and videos generated in Gemini Notebook with Veo, Omni or Nano Banana carry an invisible SynthID watermark, and a visible watermark is added too unless you're on Pro or Ultra and switch it off.

Is NotebookLM free?

Yes. With a Google Account you get 100 notebooks, up to 50 sources per notebook, and every Studio tool, Audio Overviews included. What's limited is how much you use it. Google's help center says the limits are compute-based: the complexity of your prompt, the features you use and the length of your chat all count. Your quota refreshes every 5 hours until you hit a weekly limit, and when you get close, a message under the chat tells you when it resets.

NotebookLM pricing in the US

There's no standalone NotebookLM subscription. Higher limits come with Google's AI plans, which also include Gemini, storage and other perks. These are the prices on Google's US plans page:

Both Ultra plans are billed monthly only, and Google's help center says these limits may change. Pro also lets you turn off the visible watermark on generated images and videos, and gets priority access to new features (Plus gets early access).

As for your data: Google says what you upload isn't used to train Gemini Notebook unless you send feedback, in which case it may review the whole interaction.

Who it's for, and who should skip it

Gemini Notebook is for people who start from their own material: a syllabus, a stack of PDFs, a contract, a set of interviews, a long report. It reads only what you give it, shows where every sentence came from and turns the same sources into something you can listen to on a walk. If that's how you work, the free plan will take you a long way.

Skip it if you want an assistant that already knows things, or one that searches the web for you as it answers. That's a different job, and a general assistant does it better.

NotebookLM or something else?

Gemini · Google

Free with limits · from $4.99/mo

Gemini review →

For everyday questions without sources, Google's own Gemini is the obvious partner, and the same Google AI plans cover both. If your sources are still out on the web, Perplexity searches it for you and lists its citations. For long back-and-forth writing on a document, Claude is built for that. And if what you really want is a podcast from your documents, I compared what's left now that Copilot Podcasts is gone in NotebookLM vs VibeVoice vs Copilot Podcasts.

Written by Miguel Ángel, with help from an LLM to verify facts.