Google is including what it calls "featured notebooks" to NotebookLM as a technique to demo its AI-powered software program and supply interactive, high-quality sources on all the pieces from private recommendation to William Shakespeare. The corporate tried one thing related after its developer convention in Could, when it created a NotebookLM pocket book educated on all the pieces that was introduced at Google I/O 2025.
The brand new featured notebooks have their very own devoted tab on the NotebookLM homepage and had been created in partnership with "revered authors, researchers, publications and nonprofits all over the world," Google says. Like all NotebookLM initiatives, you may work together with the uncooked sources that make up the pocket book's data base, ask questions on matters in a chat interface or view an AI-generated abstract, audio overview or movement chart for extra methods to work together with the content material.
The primary spherical of featured notebooks included a pocket book on longevity recommendation educated on the guide Tremendous Agers, a pocket book on 2025 predictions educated on The Economist'sannual "The World Forward" report and an recommendation pocket book educated on The Atlantic's "The way to Construct a Life" column, amongst a number of different choices. Your mileage might fluctuate on how helpful every featured pocket book is — I discovered the Shakespeare pocket book to be probably the most enjoyable to play with — however every is an effective illustration of the standard and quantity of fabric that must be uploaded to NotebookLM for it to work nicely.
Google launched NotebookLM in 2023 as an experiment in constructing an AI instrument that depends on sources you add, slightly than regardless of the firm managed to scrape off the web. The concept is that chats about matters in NotebookLM could be much less susceptible to hallucinations than what an AI Overview in Google Search spits out. Or on the very least, it could be simpler to verify the AI's solutions as a result of the supply materials is a click on away.
NotebookLM grew to become actually fashionable when Google launched Audio Overviews in September 2024, AI-generated podcasts concerning the materials uploaded to a NotebookLM pocket book. Since then, the corporate has expanded the instrument at a fast clip, introducing cellular apps and the flexibility to share public notebooks. Clearly, Google is dedicated to NotebookLM and featured notebooks are an extra try to mannequin how the AI-powered instrument can really be helpful.
Google says featured notebooks can be found to individuals utilizing the desktop model of NotebookLM as we speak and extra featured notebooks will likely be added sooner or later.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-adds-featured-notebooks-on-selected-topics-to-notebooklm-181400251.html?src=rss