What is NotebookLM? How Google's AI works on your own documents

What is NotebookLM? How Google's AI works on your own documents

NotebookLM is a free AI tool from Google that answers only from documents you have added yourself. You upload a quote, a contract or twenty pages of meeting notes and ask questions about them. Each answer comes with a pointer to the exact passage it is based on, so you can check it in seconds.

Most businesses have a pile like that: papers someone has to reread before every meeting. That pile is what NotebookLM is made for.

One thing to know before you go looking: in July 2026 Google renamed the service Gemini Notebook, and the address is now notebook.google. It is the same product, and notebooks you have already created are still there. Since almost everyone still searches for NotebookLM – or Notebook LM with a space – that is the name we use here.

How NotebookLM works – and how it differs from ChatGPT

The difference from ChatGPT is where the answers come from. ChatGPT answers from everything it learned from the internet, plus whatever you paste in at the moment. NotebookLM sticks to the documents you selected and does not add facts of its own beyond them.

Every answer contains small numbers that point to the source. Hover over a number and you see the quote from the document; click it and you land in the right place in the file.

An example. You run a small agency and the client emails: "Can you start next week, and what happens if we want to cancel?" Instead of reading the contract and quote from the top, you ask the question in the notebook. The answer points to the cancellation clause and to the line with the start date. You read two passages instead of twenty pages.

You can also tick which files a question should use. If you are asking about the notice period, the price list does not need to be included.

What can you add to NotebookLM?

This is what you can add:

• PDF, Word and PowerPoint, plus plain text files
• Google Docs, Slides and Sheets
• Web pages – the text comes along, but not images, embedded video or pages behind a login
• YouTube videos that are public and have captions – it is the captions that are read, not the picture
• Audio files and text you paste in directly

Each file can be up to 500,000 words or 200 megabytes. Password-protected PDFs cannot be added.

On the free plan a notebook holds 50 files, and you can have 100 notebooks. That is plenty for a smaller business: one notebook for quotes, one for the staff handbook and one per larger client project.

Which languages does NotebookLM support?

NotebookLM works in many languages, not just English. You can add documents in one language, ask questions in another and get answers in the language you choose. The tool follows the language setting of your Google account, and you can change it under Settings → Output language.

The setting applies to chat, summaries and audio overviews. Google supports more than 80 languages for audio and video overviews, so you can, for example, add an English report and get the answers in Swedish.

The NotebookLM podcast: listen instead of reading

What made NotebookLM famous is the audio overview – what many people call a NotebookLM podcast. Two AI voices talk through your documents in a short conversation, much like a podcast episode you can listen to in the car on the way to a meeting.

On the free plan you can create 3 audio overviews a day. That covers most needs: a run-through of the quote the evening before, or of minutes you did not have time to read. If you plan to make one for every client every morning, they run out quickly.

The same button can also produce video overviews (also 3 a day for free), summaries, slide decks and flashcards. For a business, the summary and the slide deck are usually the most useful – the flashcards are mainly for people who are studying.

What does NotebookLM cost – is it free?

NotebookLM is free. All you need is an ordinary Google account, and no card. The free plan gives you 100 notebooks, 50 files in each, 50 questions a day and 3 audio and 3 video overviews a day.

If you want higher limits, NotebookLM is included in Google's AI subscriptions. The prices below come from Google's price page for Sweden and the limits from the help centre, updated on 2 September 2026:

• Free – 0 SEK. 100 notebooks, 50 files in each, 3 audio overviews a day.
• Google AI Plus – 55 SEK a month. 200 notebooks, 100 files in each, 6 audio overviews a day.
• Google AI Pro – 255 SEK a month. 500 notebooks, 300 files in each, 20 audio overviews a day.
• Google AI Ultra – 999 or 2,599 SEK a month. 500 notebooks, 500–600 files in each, 100–200 audio overviews a day.

So you never pay for NotebookLM alone. The subscriptions also include the Gemini app and cloud storage – 400 gigabytes with Plus and 5 terabytes with Pro. If you already have Google AI Pro for Gemini, you already have the higher limits. If you only want to ask questions about your documents, the free plan is enough for most people.

Google changes the limits now and then, so check what applies before you start paying.

When is NotebookLM worth it for a smaller business?

The rule of thumb is simple: NotebookLM fits when the text already exists and you want to stop rereading it. A few situations where it usually pays off:

• Before a client meeting. Add the quote and the contract, and ask what you promised about delivery time. Read the citation before you say it out loud.
• After a long autumn of meetings. Ask what you agreed with a particular client, instead of leafing through twenty sets of minutes.
• Staff handbook, routines and price lists. New hires can ask the notebook instead of interrupting the person who knows the answer.
• Tenders and bids. Add all the bids with attachments and ask what separates the suppliers.

If something instead has to be written from scratch – a sales email, an idea, a text with no source material – ChatGPT or Claude is still the better choice. We compared them side by side in our comparison of AI chatbots. NotebookLM is not a better chat. It is a fast reader of what you already have.

Can you trust the answers – and is it safe?

A citation does not automatically mean the answer is right. The AI can miss a sentence or interpret two passages differently from how you would. The citation is there so that you click and read the original before promising a client anything.

Three things to keep in mind before adding sensitive documents:

• Your files are not used to train Google's AI. But if you give an answer a thumbs up or down, Google may review that conversation, including what you uploaded.
• A work account in Google Workspace is safer. There, nothing is reviewed by people, not even when you leave feedback. If the company has Workspace, client contracts belong there – not in a private Gmail account.
• Short documents get no exact citation. If a file is very short, NotebookLM only points to the whole document, and you have to read it yourself.

Get started with NotebookLM in ten minutes

Start with a single document you are tired of rereading – a quote is enough.

1. Go to NotebookLM and sign in with your Google account.
2. Create a new notebook and add the file.
3. Ask a question you already know the answer to, and check that the citation points to the right place.
4. Then ask the question you actually have.
5. Press audio overview and listen to the run-through next time you are in the car.

If it is faster than leafing through the file yourself, you know whether NotebookLM is worth anything to you – without paying a penny.

If you want help working out which documents belong in a notebook and which tasks belong in an ordinary AI chat, we are happy to help as an AI consultant.