As previewed at I/O 2024 in May, NotebookLM is rolling out an “Audio Overview” feature that turns your documents, slides, and charts into “engaging audio discussions.”
When you open a notebook and go into the high-level guide, which already lets you create a FAQ, Table of contents, Briefing doc, and more, there will be a new “Generate” button. Two “AI hosts” will have a “lively” back-and-forth discussion. They can summarize your added sources, make connections between topics, and “banter.”
You can download this file and listen to it elsewhere, with NotebookLM particularly aimed at study guide use cases.
Google notes that the generated discussion is a “reflection of the sources that you’ve uploaded” rather than a “comprehensive or objective view of a topic.” There’s also the possibility of inaccuracies being introduced.
Audio Overviews are still in the experimental phase, and take several minutes to generate for larger notebooks. Only English output is supported today, while the ability to interrupt and ask a question is not yet available.
At I/O, Google showed off being able to “join” the conversation to steer it and ask questions. There was a real-time transcript and cool circular animation, with that experience more live than just getting an audio file.
The last big update to NotebookLM in June added Gemini 1.5 Pro and expanded availability to over 200 countries.
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