How to Use NotebookLM: From Sources to Audio Overviews

Are your lecture PDFs sitting in one drive, your meeting notes in another app, and your reference videos in a YouTube playlist, so every exam or report starts with reopening them one by one? By the time you have found and reread everything, there is little time left to actually understand it.

NotebookLM is Google's AI notebook that answers only from the sources you upload and attaches a citation to every answer. Since July 2026, Google has been rolling it out under a new name, Gemini Notebook, and existing notebooks and shared links keep working. According to the official help center, each source can be up to 500,000 words or 200MB, and free users can add up to 50 sources per notebook. This guide walks through creating a notebook, asking cited questions, and generating Audio Overviews, mind maps and study guides, then shows how to turn lectures and meetings into sources with daglo.

How to use NotebookLM: an AI notebook grounded in your own sources

Using NotebookLM takes three steps: create a notebook for a topic, add sources such as PDFs, web pages or YouTube videos, then chat with them or build study materials in the Studio panel. Every answer is grounded in what you uploaded.

A general chatbot draws on everything it learned, while NotebookLM centers its answers on the material in your notebook. That makes it a great fit for work with a clear scope, like a single course or a single project. Keep one notebook per topic, such as "Intro to Economics midterm" or "Q3 product launch", so sources never get mixed up.

Step 1: Create a notebook and add sources

Open NotebookLM, select Create new notebook, then choose Upload sources in the pop-up. After the notebook is created, you can keep adding material with + Add in the Sources panel.

Supported formats and limits can change, so check the official help center if you are working with a large set of files.

Step 2: Ask questions and get cited answers

Once your sources are in, type a question in the chat. Answers include citations pulled from your sources, and selecting a citation jumps to that exact passage so you can read it in context.

• Narrow the scope: Ask "List the five concepts the professor stressed in week 3, with definitions" and name the week, chapter or meeting date.
• Compare sources: Ask "Compare in a table why these two reports estimate the market size differently."
• Keep good answers: Choose Save to note and the answer stays in your notes with its tables and citations intact.

You can also select only the sources you want the answer to draw from. For key numbers and definitions, make a habit of clicking the citation and checking the original.

Step 3: Build Audio Overviews, mind maps and study guides

The Studio panel turns your sources into new study formats. Listen with an Audio Overview, see the structure in a mind map, and prepare for exams with a study guide, so you review the same material in several ways.

• Audio Overview: Two hosts discuss your material like a podcast. Choose Deep Dive, Brief, Critique or Debate, pick from more than 80 languages, steer the focus with a prompt, and download the file. In English you can also set the length and join the conversation to ask the hosts questions.
• Mind map: Lays out the topics and subtopics of your sources as branches. Useful for seeing how a whole unit fits together.
• Reports: Pick a study guide, FAQ or briefing doc, or define your own format, and export it to Google Docs.
• Flashcards and quizzes: Turn the concepts you need to memorize into cards and questions to test yourself.

Studio also offers Video Overviews, slide decks, infographics and data tables. Listen to an Audio Overview on your commute and work through the mind map and study guide at your desk, and you have reviewed everything twice.

How it differs from ChatGPT and Claude Projects

Projects in ChatGPT and Claude also let you upload files and chat inside them. The difference is where the answers come from. NotebookLM shines at answering from your sources and showing the original through citations, while Projects shine at combining your files with the model's general knowledge to keep writing and analyzing.

A simple split works well: use NotebookLM when you need to understand material accurately and trace every claim, and use Projects when you turn that understanding into something new.

Turn lectures and meetings into sources with daglo

NotebookLM is only as good as its sources. Transcribe spoken content like lectures and meetings with daglo and add it as a text source, and the explanations and decisions that never made it onto a slide become part of the evidence.

1. Record the lecture or meeting and transcribe it in daglo. You get the conversation with who said what, plus a summary.
2. Ask daglo's Board Chat something like "Pull together every part the professor said will be on the exam" to check the key points first.
3. Copy the transcript, add it to NotebookLM as a pasted-text source, and ask questions alongside the lecture PDF.

Now you can ask questions that connect the slides and the talk, such as "How did the professor explain the chart on slide 12?" If you want every lecture summarized the same way, save that request in daglo's My Templates. daglo remembers the prompt and automatically summarizes each new recording in that format. With daglo's all-in-one AI chat, you can also use ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude in one app and move straight on to drafting your report.

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