I’ve tested just about every AI tool that’s crossed my path. Many have come, and many have gone. Very few actually manage to last past the first week in my workflow. Google’s AI-powered research assistant, NotebookLM, is one of the rare ones that did, and I can’t imagine going back to how I worked and studied without it.

I’ve been using the tool since it wasn’t publicly available and was being tested as an experiment in Google Labs, and I’ve watched it evolve from a tool with only a Chat interface to one with multiple learning features like Audio Overviews, Quizzes, Flashcards, Video Overviews, and one of my personal favorites: Mind Maps. I’ve said this multiple times before, and I’ll say it again: no tool does AI-powered Mind Maps better than NotebookLM.

Like NotebookLM’s competitors, I’ve tested a bunch of tools specifically built to generate mind maps from uploaded sources, and none of them do a very great job. Sure, NotebookLM’s Mind Maps aren’t perfect, and there are plenty of ways Google could improve the feature. But fortunately, there are some Chrome extensions that help solve its limitations. It’s one of the features I use the most in the tool — here are a few ways I use NotebookLM's Mind Maps.

Mind Maps make financial breakdowns so much easier

Budgeting, but make it visual

While this might sound a bit insane, given how many dedicated budget-tracking apps there are now, NotebookLM is my go-to tool for organizing and analyzing my finances. It’s a source-grounded tool, meaning it references only the sources you’ve uploaded (or the information you’ve shared with it via the Chat panel for that specific notebook). This makes it perfect for breaking down lengthy bank statements and helping you understand where the biggest proportion of your money goes.

Though asking the tool questions or having it summarize your forty-page half-yearly bank statement through the Chat panel is a great way to manage your finances, I’ve found that the Mind Maps feature is what really changes the game in this use case. For instance, when I upload my previous month’s statement into a notebook at the start of a new month, the first thing I do is generate a Mind Map.

The map is typically divided into four nodes (with slight variations every month — but the concept remains the same): Account Holder Information, Statement Details, Balance Summary, and Transactions. When these nodes are expanded, the sub-nodes reveal categorized transactions, recurring payments, and more.

The best part about NotebookLM Mind Maps, in particular, is that clicking a node or sub-node instantly generates a summary of the content within that branch. Though I don’t do this every month, I often take some time to collectively analyze my finances over a set period to track trends and spending habits more clearly. To do this effectively, I upload each month’s bank statements to the same notebook, along with any other relevant financial documents.

The Mind Maps feature is excellent for spotting patterns across multiple documents and identifying recurring transactions or shifts in spending categories. For example, it can highlight when certain expenses, like subscriptions or utilities, start to increase, or when a specific category consistently takes up a larger share of your budget.

Making sense of my own messy research

One Mind Map at a time

Though I like to think of myself as an organized person, I obviously can’t compete with AI tools. When I’m conducting research for quite literally anything, whether it’s work or academia-related, I often end up with a couple dozen reference links saved in my notes and scattered research files everywhere. Forget organizing them, even remembering the content of the sources I’ve added to my notebook gets difficult at times. NotebookLM is one of the only AI tools that’s helped me solve this issue, and the Mind Maps feature is a huge part of why.

It automatically organizes all the sources I’ve uploaded into structured branches, helping me quickly glance over and see how different topics connect and where certain pieces of information belong. The best part is that you can add sources of various types to your NotebookLM notebooks.

They don’t have to just be PDFs (which is what many AI tools tend to limit you to). You can paste text, add webpage URLs, link to YouTube videos, Markdown files, Google Docs, and more. You can even include Excel sheets by converting them to a compatible format. NotebookLM’s Mind Maps then summarize all your sources into a visual branching diagram.

Using Mind Maps to organize my research has helped me uncover connections across documents that I might’ve otherwise never noticed. At the end of the day, NotebookLM is an AI-powered tool, and AI can analyze documents far faster and more efficiently than I ever could.

Mind Maps are great for entertainment purposes too

Using Mind Maps for TV shows and books? Guilty.

A super weird way I use NotebookLM’s Mind Maps is to quickly “watch” a show I’ve been curious about but don’t actually feel like watching. I also use it to catch up on previous seasons of a show I’ve already seen before a new one drops just so I don’t have to spend hours rewatching the entire thing from scratch.

For instance, Stranger Things’ final season comes out soon, and despite watching the beginning of the show multiple times, I’ve completely lost track of the storylines. Sure, I remember the main plot and characters, but not enough to confidently jump into the new season.

So instead, a few days before it drops, I upload detailed episode summaries into a NotebookLM notebook, both in blog and YouTube video form, and generate a Mind Map from them. This way, I get a quick summary of the entire show, and it’s often enough to recall most of the key moments I’ve forgotten.

For the entries in the Mind Map that I don’t remember at all, I simply click on the relevant node, and a summary of that specific plotline or event instantly appears. I did the same thing with a Netflix show called The Queen’s Gambit not too long ago, and even though it’s a show I’ve never actually watched, I feel like I practically have. NotebookLM’s Mind Maps also work flawlessly when you’re using them to “read” a book.

Cramming for exams

How did I even study before NotebookLM’s Mind Maps?

Though I now use NotebookLM for all sorts of tasks (which is probably obvious from the above), I still primarily rely on it for studying. When NotebookLM first launched Mind Maps, I immediately knew it would change the way I study. I’ve always been a huge fan of mind maps and have used them to study and brainstorm since middle school. I even have a huge whiteboard hung in my room just for sketching out mind maps whenever I’m preparing for an exam or planning a big project.

Well, NotebookLM’s Mind Maps feature is the reason why my whiteboard has remained untouched for the last few months. The AI-generated maps organize my notes and readings so efficiently that what used to take me an hour to map out manually now takes seconds. And the best part is that they’re interactive, so I can expand or summarize concepts as needed without cluttering my screen.

Whether I’m studying a topic completely from scratch or it’s one I’m already familiar with and just need a bit of revision, the first thing I do after creating a NotebookLM notebook is generate a Mind Map. It’s the best way to study, especially if your sources are lengthy and dense, like lecture slides, PDFs, or research papers.

Mind Maps is NotebookLM's best feature

Whether you're a student or a professional who often deals with a lot of documents, you shouldn't be missing out on NotebookLM's Mind Maps feature. The best part is that you don't even need to subscribe to NotebookLM's premium tier to take advantage of the feature.