On Thursday, Google upgraded NotebookLM’s audio summarization feature, allowing users to guide conversations on specific topics. This makes it easier to understand long documents and videos. The feature quickly gained popularity as individuals shared their AI-generated audio summaries on social media.
Raiza Martin, NotebookLM’s product leader at Google Labs, shared that the update allows users to guide the AI’s direction. She said, “The top feature users wanted was to give the AI a little nudge.”
What’s New?
Previously, Audio Overviews automatically generated AI conversations from user content, but now you can customize these overviews to focus on specific topics. A new “Customize” button lets you give instructions to the AI, ensuring the audio is more relevant to your needs.
Moreover, Users can now enjoy background listening in Audio Overviews, allowing them to work within NotebookLM while audio plays.
Google will reveal the availability and pricing for NotebookLM Business later this year, but details are still unclear. The platform now has 4.17 million monthly visits, with 2.5 million from desktops and 1.6 million from mobile.
There’s no dedicated mobile app yet, but the team is working on one to enhance NotebookLM for smartphone users. They’re also exploring more voice options and features for Audio Overviews, as well as additional speaker options for AI discussions, though that’s not a top priority.
Surprisingly, With over 80,000 organizations now using it, Google has also launched the NotebookLM Business pilot program, offering businesses early access to features, training, and email support.
Additionally, The update focuses on strong security, making sure that user data won’t be used for training purposes.
Raiza Martin emphasized the team’s commitment to privacy, showing they care about protecting user information.
“In general, we do not train on user data. So, your use of it, or whatever queries you enter, whatever answers you enter, we don’t train the models with it. We solicit a lot of feedback from our users.”
While Google hasn’t disclosed the specific success of NotebookLM’s upgrades, traffic analytics, SimilarWeb revealed a remarkable 371% increase in visits in September, reaching 3.07 million. It’s clear that Google is about to set a trend in the AI landscape with its ongoing advancements.
