Google’s NotebookLM enhances AI note-taking with YouTube, audio file sources, sharable audio discussions

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Google on Thursday introduced new updates to its AI note-taking and analysis assistant, NotebookLM, permitting customers to get summaries of YouTube movies and audio recordsdata and even create sharable AI-generated audio discussions, because the search big goals to broaden the use circumstances and attain of the software, which was initially launched as a undertaking at its I/O developer convention final yr and expanded to markets together with India, U.Okay., and greater than 200 international locations months after its debut for public entry within the U.S.

NotebookLM, which was initially utilized by educators and learners, has extra not too long ago seen a major shift in its person base and is now attracting extra individuals in a office setting.

Raiza Martin, a senior product supervisor for AI at Google Labs, stated in an unique interview that the software’s customers at the moment are roughly cut up, with 50% being educators and learners, and the opposite half consisting of enterprise professionals.

“People are now sharing notebooks, and it’s creating a network effect,” she instructed TechCrunch.

This gave the NotebookLM workforce a push to introduce new options, with the hopes of enhancing its community impact and making the software in style amongst individuals of various demographics.

Earlier this month, NotebookLM added Audio Overview to let customers flip their paperwork into participating audio discussions. The newest replace expands that have by permitting customers to share the Audio Overview generated in NotebookLM with a public URL.

To make use of the function, you click on on the share icon out there on the Audio Overview generated within the software to get its URL, which you’ll then copy and share with others.

Martin stated that her workforce noticed professionals importing net pages, resumes, and even their displays on NotebookLM to generate Audio Overviews, then sharing these with their employers, colleagues, or purchasers.

NotebookLM additionally added help for YouTube movies and audio recordsdata (reminiscent of .mp3 and .wav) as new supply sorts, alongside its present help for Google Docs, PDFs, textual content recordsdata, Google Slides, and net pages. The brand new options assist customers summarize key factors from YouTube movies and generate takeaways and insights from the audio recordings they’ve of their examine classes or initiatives.

Picture Credit: Google

Martin instructed TechCrunch that as a result of Google Labs has a small workforce working for NotebookLM, powered by the corporate’s multimodal giant language mannequin Gemini 1.5 Professional, each new function the workforce provides to the software is predicated on person suggestions.

“What’s interesting about AI tools is that a lot of assumptions change,” she stated. “What might have been useful last year might not be useful this year.”

In June, Google expanded NotebookLM entry to greater than 200 international locations after launching it initially within the U.S. late final yr.

Martin instructed TechCrunch, with out disclosing particular numbers, that whereas NotebookLM nonetheless has a majority of its utilization within the U.S., Japan has emerged as the following large marketplace for the software. The manager additionally underlined that a few of its customers are utilizing NotebookLM to get AI-based summarization in languages completely different from what they set on the software.

“In Japan particularly, we see a lot of documents that are not in Japanese, but NotebookLM is set to Japanese,” she stated. “So people are querying in their native language, using it with probably complex and dense documents in English.”

Google stated that the knowledge customers add to NotebookLM stays non-public and isn’t used to coach an AI mannequin. To entry the software, customers have to be not less than 18 years outdated.

Nonetheless, NotebookLM faces challenges inherent to its nature as an AI software. One is that if customers rely an excessive amount of on NotebookLM, they may shortly lose the behavior of studying long-form content material and analysis papers. This might additionally result in the issue of oversimplification.

Martin instructed TechCrunch that her workforce could be very nicely conscious of those issues.

NotebookLM offers clickable citations from the content material customers add to let customers go deeper into the summarized notes.

“We try to encourage you to read your original text. We encourage you to double-check all the answers that come out of NotebookLM… You could read SparkNotes or the actual book; it’s always up to you,” she stated.

NotebookLM is presently restricted to the online, although Martin indicated that its cellular apps might come someday subsequent yr.

In the meantime, the workforce is busy including extra new options. These shall be centered on including extra help on the enter aspect and new sources for outputs, Martin stated.

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