Google’s NotebookLM Audio Overviews will now allow you to name in with a query

Google’s made a reasonably large splash with its AI-generated podcast function , and earlier than the yr is out the app is . As half of a bigger redesign of Google’s AI pocket book software, Audio Overviews at the moment are interactive.

After producing an Audio Overview based mostly on the sources you’ve uploaded, Google says you’ll be capable of play the recording in a brand new “Interactive mode (BETA).” Clicking “Be part of” at any level in that new playback display will get the AI hosts to name on you to ask a query, which they’ll reply stay whilst you’re listening again. Google cautions that the function continues to be experimental and that hosts would possibly pause awkwardly or introduce new inaccuracies whereas answering questions, but it surely appeared to work effectively in a quick take a look at. I used to be capable of create a NotebookLM mission educated on articles about NotebookLM, and whereas asking a query did appear to sluggish the entire Overview down, the AI hosts had been capable of easily incorporate a solution into the remainder of the present.

Alongside these new expanded options, NotebookLM is getting a little bit of a visible overhaul. The interface is now cut up into three sections, a “Studio” panel the place AI-generated content material like Audio Overviews, research guides, and FAQs stay, a central “Chat” panel for asking questions on your sources to Google’s AI, and a “Sources” panel on the left for managing what sources NotebookLM pulls from. It’s a fairly clear setup, and having the ability to collapse a panel whenever you’re not utilizing it retains issues from getting cluttered.

Google can also be utilizing these updates as a technique to introduce its first go at monetizing NotebookLM. A brand new premium subscription is offered to Google Workspace and Cloud prospects as a Gemini add-on, and provides you with the power to generate as much as 20 Audio Overviews per day, create as much as 500 AI notebooks, and add as much as 300 sources per pocket book. That interprets to a further $20 per consumer monthly for Workspace subscribers. Beginning subsequent yr, NotebookLM Plus advantages can even be rolled into the Google One AI Premium subscription.

NotebookLM began as an inside Google experiment known as Challenge Tailwind, however shortly blossomed into one of many extra cheap functions of Google’s Gemini AI mannequin due to its grounding in sources you add, relatively than the net and no matter scraped materials Gemini was initially educated on. It’s able to working with something from net articles to , however its Audio Overviews have confirmed to be one in all its hottest options.