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Productivity & meetingsGoogle

NotebookLM

NotebookLM, renamed Gemini Notebook by Google on July 16, 2026, is a research assistant that answers questions from the sources you upload and cites them. It turns PDFs, websites, YouTube videos and audio into summaries, Audio Overviews, quizzes and slide decks, and suits students, researchers and analysts working with long material.

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Quick facts

VendorGoogle
CategoryProductivity & meetings
PlatformsWebiOSAndroid
Free planYes
Pricing from$4.99/month
Last reviewed

Best for

  • Students studying course material
  • Researchers synthesizing papers
  • Analysts reading long reports
  • Learners who prefer listening

Key features

Source-grounded chat

Answers questions from your PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs and Google Slides, quoting the exact passages it relied on.

Audio and Video Overviews

Turns a notebook's sources into podcast-style Deep Dive discussions or short video summaries you can play on the go.

Study tools

Creates flashcards, quizzes, mind maps and reports, with short-answer, multiple-select and fill-in-the-blank quiz formats announced in September 2026.

Cloud computer per notebook

Writes and runs code natively for data analysis, a capability launched with the rebrand and rolled out first to Ultra and Workspace customers.

Mobile voice and recorder

The mobile apps record lectures and support real-time spoken conversations with a notebook in nearly 100 languages.

Use cases

  • Upload a semester of lecture recordings and textbook chapters, then quiz yourself before the final exam.
  • Listen to an Audio Overview of a long industry report during a commute instead of reading it.
  • Ask which trends appear across several competitor research documents and check each cited passage.

Pricing

Pricing from
$4.99/month

The Standard tier is free with a Google Account. Higher limits come with Google AI Plus at $4.99/month, Pro at $19.99/month and Ultra from $99.99/month (US prices), or with qualifying Workspace and Google Cloud plans.

Ways to save

  • The free Standard tier allows up to 100 notebooks with 50 sources each, so test your workload there before subscribing.
  • Google AI Plus at $4.99/month doubles the free usage allowance, the cheapest paid route to more room.
Prices checked on Oct 12, 2026

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What is NotebookLM?

NotebookLM is Google’s source-grounded research notebook, now called Gemini Notebook. You create a notebook, add material you trust, and answers point back to quotes from those sources. The old notebooklm.google address now redirects to notebook.google.

What changed in 2026

  • New name on July 16. The rename ties the product more closely to the Gemini app and Google Search.
  • Code execution. Every notebook gained a secure cloud computer for data analysis.
  • Flexible limits on September 2. Fixed daily caps gave way to a compute budget that refreshes every 5 hours.
  • Study features on September 15. Real-time voice conversations and a lecture recorder arrived on mobile.

Limitations

Answers depend on what you upload, so gaps in your sources become gaps in the answers. Heavy users can hit the weekly limit, and the compute budget makes output counts hard to predict. Google AI subscriptions require users aged 18 or older, and prices vary by country.

NotebookLM FAQ

Yes. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026. Existing notebooks stay accessible, shared links redirect automatically, and it remains a standalone product on the web and mobile.

Yes. The Standard tier costs nothing with a Google Account and includes chat, Audio and Video Overviews, reports and study tools. Use is capped by a compute budget that refreshes every 5 hours until you reach a weekly limit.

Since September 2, 2026, limits are compute-based instead of fixed per feature. Prompt complexity, chat length, number of sources and the features used all count, and outputs like Video Overviews can be deferred to generate later.

Not by default, according to Google. Personal data is not used for training unless you submit feedback, and for Workspace users uploads, queries and responses are not reviewed by humans or used to train AI models.

Outputs created with Veo, Omni or Nano Banana carry invisible SynthID watermarks. Paid tiers can remove visible watermarks, except for users in India, South Korea and Vietnam, where one is applied automatically.

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Guides

Best Free AI Tools 2026: 20 Free Plans Worth Using, by Category

As of October 2026, the best free AI tools are ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek for chat, GitHub Copilot for coding, Canva and Freepik for images, Kling and CapCut for video, ElevenLabs and Suno for audio, and NotebookLM for research. Every free plan has a cap, usually credits that reset daily or monthly.

10 min read

Sources

Reviewed on Oct 12, 2026

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