Get to know the tool
About NotebookLM
NotebookLM — now renamed Gemini Notebook — is Google’s AI research and thinking partner that answers questions using only the sources you upload, with citations back to the exact passages. It is built for students, researchers and professionals who work through large piles of documents and need summaries they can trust. NotebookLM is free at notebooklm.google.com; higher limits come bundled with Google AI plans, with Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month.
What is NotebookLM?
NotebookLM organises your research into notebooks. You feed each notebook sources — PDFs, Google Docs, web pages, YouTube videos, audio files and more — and the AI works only from that material. Ask a question and the answer comes back grounded in your documents, with inline citations you can click to check the original wording. As the official site puts it, NotebookLM is “your research and thinking partner, grounded in the information you trust, built with the latest Gemini models.”
Google renamed the product Gemini Notebook in July 2026, and the official site carries the new name, but the tool itself is unchanged: same notebooks, same source-grounded approach, same limits. Beyond chat, its Studio turns your files into slide decks, mind maps, audio overviews and video overviews. If you need to turn finished research into a polished presentation afterwards, Gamma is a natural next step.
Key Features of NotebookLM
- Source-grounded chat with citations: Every answer is drawn from your uploaded sources and linked to the passages it came from, so you can verify claims yourself.
- Audio Overviews: Your sources become a podcast-style conversation between two hosts — the feature that made NotebookLM famous.
- Video Overviews: Narrated visual summaries of your material, with fully animated Cinematic Video Overviews on the top Google AI tiers.
- Slide decks and reports: Generate decks, briefing documents and study guides from a notebook’s sources.
- Mind Maps: Visual maps of how concepts connect across your documents, useful for seeing the shape of a topic quickly.
- Flashcards and quizzes: Auto-generated study aids from textbooks and lecture notes, a favourite with students before exams.
- Deep Research: A research mode that gathers material into detailed reports inside your notebook.
- Flexible source types: PDFs, Google Docs and Slides, Word and PowerPoint files, text, web URLs, YouTube videos, audio and images.
- Apps and sharing: Web app plus mobile apps, with notebook sharing for classes and teams.
How to Use NotebookLM
- Sign in and create a notebook. Go to notebooklm.google.com, sign in with a Google account and click Create.
- Add your sources. Upload PDFs or documents, paste web links, or drop in a YouTube video or audio file — up to 50 sources per notebook on the free plan.
- Ask questions in chat. Query the whole set at once and click citations to verify answers against the originals.
- Generate Studio outputs. Create an Audio Overview to listen to, a mind map to explore, or flashcards and a quiz to test yourself.
- Save and share. Pin useful answers as notes, then share the notebook with classmates or colleagues.
How much does NotebookLM cost?
NotebookLM itself is free, and there is no separate NotebookLM subscription. According to Google’s NotebookLM help pages, higher limits are bundled into Google AI plans: each tier raises how many notebooks you can keep, how many sources each notebook holds, and how much you can generate. Every source is capped at 500,000 words or 200 MB on all tiers.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, source-grounded chat with citations, Audio and Video Overviews, mind maps, flashcards, quizzes and reports at standard usage limits |
| Google AI Plus | $4.99/month | 200 notebooks, 100 sources per notebook, roughly double the free usage limits, earlier access to new features |
| Google AI Pro | $19.99/month | 500 notebooks, 300 sources per notebook, roughly four times the free usage limits, plus Gemini features and cloud storage across Google services |
| Google AI Ultra | From $99.99/month | 500 notebooks, up to 600 sources per notebook, the highest usage limits and Cinematic Video Overviews |
Last verified: October 2026
Google adjusts AI plan prices and availability by country, so confirm the figure shown in your own account before paying.
NotebookLM Pros and Cons
Pros
- Answers stay grounded in your sources, with clickable citations — far fewer invented facts than a general chatbot
- The free plan is genuinely generous: 100 notebooks and 50 sources each, with the full Studio included
- Audio Overviews turn dense reading into something you can absorb on a commute
- Flashcards, quizzes and mind maps make it a complete study workflow
- No separate subscription to manage — upgrades ride on Google AI plans many users already have
Cons
- It only knows what you feed it — no use for topics you have not gathered sources for
- Notebooks are silos: there is no search or reasoning across different notebooks
- Free-plan usage limits bite during heavy daily research sessions
- Google keeps renaming and repricing its AI plans, so tier names and limits change often
- Your documents are processed on Google’s servers, which rules it out for some confidential material
Who should use NotebookLM?
NotebookLM is close to perfect for students revising from textbooks and lecture recordings, researchers comparing a stack of papers, and professionals who must brief themselves from reports without misquoting them. Teachers can build a notebook per course and share it with a class. It is less suited to open-ended brainstorming or live web research — for that you want a general assistant, then bring the findings back into a notebook.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is NotebookLM free?
Yes. NotebookLM is free with a Google account, and the free plan is generous: up to 100 notebooks with 50 sources in each, plus chat, Audio Overviews and Video Overviews. Higher limits are not sold separately; they come bundled with Google AI plans such as Pro at $19.99 a month.
Is Gemini Notebook the same as NotebookLM?
Yes. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook in July 2026, and the official site at notebooklm.google.com now carries the Gemini Notebook name. The product itself did not change: your notebooks, sources and limits carry over, and NotebookLM still describes the same source-grounded research assistant built on Google’s Gemini models.
What can I upload to NotebookLM?
NotebookLM accepts a wide mix of sources, including PDFs, Google Docs, Google Slides, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files, plain text and Markdown files, web page URLs, YouTube videos and audio files. Each source can contain up to 500,000 words, and uploaded files can be as large as 200 MB.
How many sources can a NotebookLM notebook hold?
On the free plan, each NotebookLM notebook holds up to 50 sources, and you can create up to 100 notebooks. Google AI Plus raises the cap to 100 sources per notebook, Google AI Pro raises it to 300, and Google AI Ultra allows up to 600 sources in a single notebook.
Final Verdict
NotebookLM remains the benchmark for source-grounded AI research. The grounding is the whole point: answers tied to your documents, citations you can check, and a free tier generous enough that most students and researchers will never pay. Upgrade only when the source caps or daily limits genuinely get in your way.
A good fit starts with the details. Check the official website for current features, pricing and availability before choosing a tool.
