I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Google is truly leading the AI race when it comes to productivity tools, and it's all thanks to NotebookLM. The tool first went viral for its Audio Overviews feature, and since then, the hype hasn’t died down.

Google went all-in on expanding NotebookLM's capabilities, adding features like Video Overviews, Mind Maps, and interactive modes in Audio Overviews. Yesterday, NotebookLM got its most feature-packed update yet, and though it added a ton of powerful learning tools, it also seems to have quietly removed two of its most useful ways to work.

NotebookLM quietly removed the FAQ and Timeline report formats

Yesterday, Google added a bunch of new learning tools to NotebookLM, including Flashcards, Quizzes, new Featured Notebooks aimed at high school and college students, and more. In the update, NotebookLM's most underrated feature, Reports, got perhaps the biggest redesign too.

If you aren't familiar with the Reports feature, it essentially lets you turn sources you upload to your notebook into structured documents. With this new update, NotebookLM added a new pre-set Blog Post Report format and a Create Your Own option, which lets you create a custom Report format. Additionally, NotebookLM can now analyze the sources you upload to your notebook and dynamically suggest Report options based on factors like the theme, topic, or industry mentioned in your sources.

In all the excitement, many didn't realize that NotebookLM also removed two of its previously available Report formats: FAQ and Timeline. Though I didn't notice it immediately myself when I covered the new features yesterday and was playing around with them once they rolled out, I was using NotebookLM to study today and suddenly realized that the FAQ and Timeline report options were gone.

The FAQ format lets you turn sources into a clear, question-and-answer style layout, making it easier to review key points and memorize details. The Timeline format allowed you to map events or concepts chronologically, which was especially useful for history, project planning, or any subject that benefits from a sequence-based overview.

I was personally a huge fan of both Report formats, and they were by far the best of the previous options for quickly organizing information, especially for memorization-heavy courses. Upon checking the NotebookLM Reddit, I realized I wasn't the only one disappointed with their removal.

Though you can technically attempt to recreate the formats using the new custom Report option, being able to generate them with a click of a button made the original FAQ and Timeline reports far more convenient.

While there's nothing that can be done now, I have my fingers crossed that Google will decide to bring back the FAQ and Timeline report formats in a future update, or at least release prompts for them, so users can recreate the formats more easily.