Google's latest update to its ai-powered research tool NotebookLM can turn the materials you want to examine into a podcast-like audio discussion. The new feature is called technology/ai/notebooklm-audio-overviews/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:Audio Overview;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>Audio Overview Google takes information from documents you’ve uploaded and then generates an “in-depth” discussion between two ai hosts. In addition to summarizing your sources, Google says the hosts will be able to find links between different topics and even banter back and forth. Based on the example the company posted with its announcement, the ai hosts sounded human enough to listen to, though you could still tell the voices were ai-generated from their inflections and odd pronunciations of certain words.
Since the feature is still in its experimental stage, Google admits that it has its limitations. Hosts can only speak English right now, and sometimes provide inaccurate information, meaning you’ll need to double-check your material and make sure you haven’t learned something that’s not real. You also can’t interrupt hosts while they’re talking just yet, and NotebookLM still takes several minutes to generate an audio overview for notebooks with larger files. Biao Wang, a product manager at Google Labs, wrote in the feature announcement post that his team is “excited to bring audio to NotebookLM” despite those limitations, as they “know that some people learn and remember better by listening to conversations.”
The company launched NotebookLM in 2023 as a kind of digital assistant that you can ask questions about the documents you upload. In June of this year, Google announced that NotebookLM officially went live on Gemini 1.5 Pro, giving it new features and tools, and expanding to over 200 countries and territories.
