Google NotebookLM Upgraded to Support YouTube Videos and Audio Files as Sources

The AI note-taking and research assistant offered by Google, NotebookLM, has been updated. In the new version, people can add a YouTube video or an audio file as a source and ask whatever they want the AI to know about it. Another feature, Audio Overviews, debuted earlier this month, with its shareability also improving from the platform. In addition, users can create study guides from notes taken by hand and from lecture slides. These features are available to all users.

NotebookLM Can Handle YouTube Videos, Audio Files

The NotebookLM has been launched as a platform that through the use of AI simplifies note-taking and research work for students, academicians, and journalists. One can add sources in forms of PDF files, Word document, Google Doc, or simple copies of blocks, and the AI will go ahead and process them and give summaries of the crucial points. It can also answer queries based on the added sources.

Google quietly hinted through a blog post that the AI platform will now also accept YouTube videos and audio files as sources. Users can select a public YouTube video-a URL of an unlisted video will not work-to add sources to NotebookLM. Once this is done, NotebookLM will process the video to then generate the major points discussed in it. But it is not only a video: it will also be transcribed in the text, so that users are able to navigate on topics by inline citations. Users can also see the video to offer further context within the platform itself.

Audio files are also accepted as a content source on the platform. NotebookLM can transcribe conversations and locate specific information when requested. That is for students, who record lectures to review later, or journalists, who record interviews to write stories about the interviewees. Of course, it would be just as useful to corporate professionals, wanting to recall minutes of meetings.

In addition to note-taking, the app also allows scanning handwritten notes and lecture slides. These can be scanned to include in specific study guides that break down the topic systemically. Audio Overviews are also getting an update. After generating the audio, users can share it with others with one tap. Interestingly, Google Workspace users cannot use this to share audio discussions.