Google's AI-powered research assistant, NotebookLM, is truly one of a kind and has managed to convince me that AI can genuinely be a game-changer for productivity. What a lot of people don't know about the tool, though, is just how new it still is. Google launched it as an experimental Labs project during Google I/O 2023, and the tech giant took over a year to drop its experimental label, in October 2024.
Given that it's only been around nine months since the tool "officially" launched, it's no surprise that the NotebookLM team has been working tirelessly to update it with new features and improvements. Just a couple of days ago, a leaked internal memo hinted that some of the features the team has been teasing might drop any day now. Though none of those features are here just yet, Google just added a new Featured Notebooks section to the tool, and it might just change how you research online forever.
NotebookLM rolls out featured notebooks to help you research smarter
As announced via a post on The Keyword, Google is rolling out a new NotebookLM feature that's designed to make assembling "high-quality sources to help you explore your interests" easier than ever. The team over at Google has been working with "respected authors, researchers, publications, and nonprofits" to create featured notebooks. At the moment, they're launching eight featured notebooks, all of them catering to a different area of interest and audience. Here are the eight featured notebooks:
- Longevity advice from Eric Topol, bestselling author of “Super Agers”
- Expert analysis and predictions for the year 2025 as shared in The World Ahead annual report by The Economist
- An advice notebook based on bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks' "How to Build A Life" columns in The Atlantic
- A science fan’s guide to visiting Yellowstone National Park, complete with geological explanations and biodiversity insights
- An overview of long-term trends in human wellbeing published by the University of Oxford-affiliated project, Our World In Data
- Science-backed parenting advice based on psychology professor Jacqueline Nesi’s popular Substack newsletter, Techno Sapiens
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, for students and scholars to explore
- A notebook tracking the Q1 earnings reports from the top 50 public companies worldwide, for financial analysts and market watchers alike
You can explore one of the featured notebooks by simply clicking the linked text above. All of these notebooks have been created with a bunch of sources, which makes them a much better option than just relying on scattered search results or random links. For instance, the last featured notebook has 91 different sources!
By heading to any of the featured notebooks linked above, you can interact with their content and sources using all of NotebookLM's features. If you're someone who learns better from podcasts, you can convert the notebooks’ sources into Audio Overviews. One of the biggest complaints I have with Audio Overviews is how long they can take to generate sometimes, especially the longer ones. Thankfully, the Audio Overviews within these featured notebooks are all pre-generated, meaning you won't have to wait too long once you open them. Similarly, a Mind Map has been pre-generated too, along with the different Notes formats like Briefing Docs and FAQ.
You can also ask any questions you may have about the sources, just like you can with any NotebookLM notebook. Of course, citations will always be present next to the answers, and hovering over them will show you exactly where in the source the information came from. You'll also be able to read the original source material within NotebookLM, which means you won't have to switch back and forth between tabs.
Google mentioned in the blog post that it'll continue to introduce new featured notebooks, incluidng new collections from its partnerships with The Economist and The Atlantic. The Featured Notebooks will start rolling out to users on desktop today.