AI Explains It All

Google NotebookLM

1 minute read

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Released in July 2023 by Google Labs, the AI-powered NotebookLM helps users make sense of complex information by digesting up to 50 sources—documents, YouTube videos, even entire books—and summarizing them, suggesting follow-up questions, or creating a study guide. A feature released in September that converts such source information into an eerily realistic podcast, complete with AI-generated hosts, went viral. Steven Johnson, Google Lab’s editorial director and a bestselling nonfiction author, says he long dreamed of a digital companion that could take great amounts of information about a subject and help you make sense of it all. “I really spent 30 years effectively fantasizing about what eventually became NotebookLM,” he says.

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