Ask most people what their favorite AI tool or app was in 2024 and they're likely to respond with ChatGPT. In fact, if you had asked me that question prior to September, I'd likely have said the same. As it stands, my favorite AI tool of 2024 is actually Google's NotebookLM.
For those unaware, NotebookLM is a free, web-based, AI-powered tool made by Google Labs to help with research and note-taking. Originally released in July 2023, Google's tool showed potential but lacked something to make it stand out in a growing pool of alternatives.
In September, that certain something finally came about when a new update saw the Gemini 1.5 Pro-powered tool outfitted with an audio overview option. It's that feature, which generates impressive podcast-like segments between two virtual hosts, that has elevated this tool to my favorite of the year.
Not only because of how impressive the end results are, but also because of how easily digestible, if not entertaining, the outcome is.
The problem: too much stuff, not enough time
My days are pretty packed, which means keeping up to speed with the ever-shifting landscapes of my work and personal interests can be quite demanding.
Lest I confine myself to reading a never-ending list of articles every waking hour of my day, I subscribe to the "white noise" approach of soaking in as much information as I can. That typically means listening to a lot of podcasts or media in the background while I'm busying myself with other tasks, jobs, or hobbies.
That's not an entirely uncommon thing either. There's a reason that a lot of long-form videos on YouTube fall short on the visual medium front. They're designed to be soaked up in the background while we browse around in other tabs, read comments, play games, or craft a tesla coil out of otherwise innocent household scraps.
The problem is that when there's no podcast or long-form content covering the topics I want to hear more about, I have to sacrifice what time I have free to soak things up the old-fashioned way.
The solution: Google's NotebookLM
NotebookLM is my solution in those moments, and it has been doing an outstanding job at the tail end of 2024 in keeping me up to speed with everything going on in my circle of interests.
Its audio overview feature lets me compile all of the information I'm looking to great a breakdown of into a single media file, where I can rack it up as part of a playlist, or stream online while I'm busying myself with other things.
The hosts of each NotebookLM overview are practically a stroke of genius, and they lend a hint of that easy-listening morning show slash all-too-happy-to-be-talking-about-true-crime vibe to the results.
Creating audio overviews takes a few minutes at a time, but most of which is waiting on the audio generation, and it tends to be worth the wait with the virtual personalities tasked with delivering your chosen piece of content back to you often being engaging, entertaining, and occasionally even amusing.
To anyone, like myself, who loves to soak information in from a background source, it's the podcast of your dreams, with every episode tailored to your own interests and desire to learn more.
Outlook
As impressive as NotebookLM is, Google is still finding ways to make it even better.
Only last week, Google announced a new wave of updates to NotebookLM that looks to improve the user interface, a new premium tier of service with more control over the generated audio (included within your Google One AI Premium membership), and the option to further interact with the virtual hosts of your AI-generated overviews by "joining" the conversation using your voice to direct the duo in expanding on topics to give more details, take alternate approaches to explaining something, or answer any questions you may have about the topic.
Admittedly, you could get an app like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, etc. to pull off a similar feat, but you don't have the unique dual-host angle on things, nor do you have the same level of interaction, customization, or audio extraction as NotebookLM offers.
So, if you're anything like me, and I mean that solely in your preferred manner of learning new things or catching up with recent news or events, give NotebookLM a try.
You can even make use of the tool to generate podcasts of your own, letting the virtual hosts take center stage to share a topic you've done the research and preparation on beforehand.
What Google Labs has developed is both impressive and incredibly useful, and while something like ChatGPT is a far more capable and direct way to use AI, NotebookLM stands as one of my favorite ways to learn using AI.
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