Google NotebookLM Now Lets You Guide AI Hosts To Supercharge Your Podcasts

Google is making its NotebookLM tool, which is powered by Gemini AI 1.5, an even more powerful tool for understanding information as the company removes its “experimental” label. Along with being considered a full-fledged product ready to be used by a wider audience, NotebookLM is also getting upgraded with some helpful new features.

It’s Audio Overview feature, which will turn whatever information a user feeds it into a conversation between AI hosts, and can be used to generate AI led podcasts, is now more customizable. The company says it’s now possible for users to “guide the conversation” that takes place between the AI hosts. A user can provide NotebookLM with instructions as to how they’d like to see the conversation play out, which can provide context to the AI so it’s able to “focus on specific topics or adjust the expertise level to suit your audience.”

Additionally, users will now be able to listen to the AI hosts break down relevant information while working on other tasks within NotebookLM. It’s a nice quality of life improvement that will enable users to “query sources, get citations, and explore relevant quotes without interrupting the audio.”

For those concerned with privacy, Google says that any information fed into NotebookLM will not be used to train the tool. This privacy stance applies to both individual users as well as organizations and educational institutions who are using NotebookLM Business within Google Spaces.

NotebookLM is shaping up to be a powerful AI tool with these newly added features, and Google’s statements regarding its commitment to protecting user’s data and privacy are welcome disclosures, that may make it easier for folks to give it a shot, without fear of their data being compromised.