How to use NotebookLM
Use AI to turn a set of documents into an engaging podcast
Hey friends 👋
The most exciting AI tool I’ve used this year has got to be NotebookLM. The tool was initially revealed back in May, but was finally made available to the public for free last month.
If you don’t know what NotebookLM is: it’s a tool that turns any collection of information such as documents, presentations, websites, and videos into a unified AI studying assistant. One feature, called Audio Overview, turns the content into an engaging audio podcast for you to listen to.
Sounds exciting? Keep reading 👇
– Fawzi
P.S. Check out my friend ‘s Unknown Arts newsletter, he’s been documenting his journey learning all things AI 🤖
Today’s Edition
Main Story: How to use NotebookLM + 3 prompts to try out
Stories of the week: Claude Computer Use, SearchGPT, AI automation + human expertise
Bonus: “What you need to know about AI” course waitlist
How to use NotebookLM
NotebookLM can turn any collection of information such as articles, presentations, videos, and websites into an engaging podcast conversation between two hosts.
My first experiment with NotebookLM involved turning my 3-part series on the history of AI into a single podcast. The first 30 seconds already had me laughing as the two hosts excitingly praised me as an author and my Year 2049 “book”.
Funny enough, I didn’t prompt it to do anything specific: I just uploaded the URLs to the three articles and it generated the 10-min podcast on its own. It wasn’t perfect and it made some mistakes when telling the sequence of events. But I was still mind-blown. It had captured the essence of what I wrote and reformatted in an engaging format.
It was a little frustrating not being able to control the output as much as I wanted. But then, a couple of weeks ago, Google announced new features within NotebookLM including customizing Audio Overviews.
Customizing the Audio Overview
NotebookLM now has a prompt box to customize the Audio Overview even further. I tested out a few prompts and here are three that (kinda) worked:
Prompt #1: “Don’t skip over any details”
My first attempt generated a 10-minute podcast that skipped over many details of AI’s history. I wanted a version that covered every single detail I wrote about in my 3-part series.
This prompt ended up generating a 15-minute podcast that was more detailed and explanatory than the initial one. It also avoided some of the previous errors it made.
Prompt #2: “Focus on [topic X] only”
For my next attempt, I wanted to try the opposite and make it hyper-focused on a specific topic.
I tried: “Focus on the debate between connectionist and symbolic AI”
Surprisingly, this podcast was almost one minute longer than the previous one. However, it did focus on the connectionist and symbolic AI debate almost immediately at the second minute. The debate is mentioned around the sixth minute in the prior attempt.
The most unexpected addition was a mention of “hybrid AI” in the end, which combines both connectionist and symbolic methods. I hadn’t even mentioned it in my original article.
⚠️ This is why it’s essential to have a strong awareness of the content you’re uploading, so you can detect when AI makes a mistake or mentions topics that aren’t in your “scope” of information.
In my case, this addition is harmless. But for someone using NotebookLM to study for an exam, it’s something to be aware of.
Prompt #3: “Explain to a 5 year old who never heard about [topic]”
Einstein once said:
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”
So, I tried to make NotebookLM explain the history of AI to a 5 year old who never heard about AI. This was after many failed attempts to explain AI as a “children’s story” or “dramatic fairytale”.
The results of these attempts weren’t as unique or different as I had hoped. But I did notice subtle differences in how the two speakers were talking. They were talking slower. They repeated more things. They even introduced a “building block” metaphor to explain the first AI winter.
How to try it yourself
Go to NotebookLM (it’s free to use)
Create a new notebook
Upload the information you want (you have a limit of 50 sources)
Under Audio Overview, click on Customize and add a prompt if you need to.
Click on Generate and give it a few minutes to generate the audio
Once you’re done, leave a comment and tell me if your output was better or worse than expected.
Question for you: Do you prefer written or video tutorials?
📖 Stories of the week
🤖 Anthropic turns Claude into an AI Agent: The AI startup revealed Claude’s “Computer Use” capabilities which allow it to control your computer and complete tasks based on your requests. Watch the videos here and read their blog post here.
🧐 OpenAI launches revamped ChatGPT Search: Ever since its release, ChatGPT has been seen as the biggest threat to Google’s search dominance. Now OpenAI has lifted the curtains over “SearchGPT” and turned the pressure on Google, but also promising startups like Perplexity. Read the full announcement here and watch how you can try it out (TikTok | Instagram)
🧠 How to balance AI automation and human expertise: If you missed it, I had a thought-provoking conversation with Sarah Burton, a Lead Product Designer at Dovetail about designing AI systems that augment people instead of automating them out of a process completely. Listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
🤖 More from Year 2049
I’m working on a little course called “What you need to know about AI” aimed at non-technical people who want to understand how AI works, its real-world applications, and its limitations and risks. Sign up for the waitlist here.
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