How to Get Started, Features & Practical Examples 

Welcome to your deep dive into one of Google’s most exciting AI tools to date. Google NotebookLM isn’t just another chatbot—it’s a personalised research assistant that actually understands your documents. Imagine uploading a stack of PDFs, podcast transcripts, or Google Docs and instantly being able to ask questions, generate summaries, brainstorm ideas, or extract key insights - all grounded in your own content.

In this guide, you’ll learn what makes NotebookLM different (and smarter) than other AIs, how to use each of its core features with practical examples, and how to get started today. Whether you're an engineer, IT Leader, or CEO this tool can transform how you think, write, and create.

What is Google NotebookLM?

Google NotebookLM is an AI-powered research and note-taking tool developed by Google DeepMind. It acts like a personalised AI research assistant, enabling users to upload sources (such as documents, PDFs, and even YouTube videos and podcasts) and then interact with those sources using natural language queries. It builds a custom language model around your specific materials, which means it responds with highly contextual, relevant answers.

Originally launched as "Project Tailwind," NotebookLM is designed to streamline how users research, generate ideas, and synthesise knowledge across various types of content.

What is the Difference Between Gemini & Google NotebookLM?

NotebookLM differentiates itself from general-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or even Google's own Gemini through its source-grounded approach. While traditional AIs are trained on broad internet data and require prompt engineering to reference documents, NotebookLM works directly with the content you upload.

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Think of Gemini as your AI-powered assistant across Google products, and NotebookLM as your research-specific AI lab.

How to Get Started with NotebookLM

Starting with NotebookLM is simple and intuitive. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get going:

1. Visit https://notebooklm.google.com
2. Sign in with your Google account
3. Create a new notebook
4. Upload sources (Docs, PDFs, links)
5. Use the Chat, Audio Overview, Add Notes or Smart Notes to begin exploring
6. If you want to create a new Notebook, click the icon in the top left hand corner and you will be taken to your home screen where you can create a new Notebook or select an existing one.

Google NotebookLM Key Features with Practical Examples

Here's a breakdown of the key features that make NotebookLM a must-have for IT leaders and professionals looking to enhance productivity and streamline information processing.

1. Source Upload & Management

At the heart of Google NotebookLM is its ability to build a personalised AI model around the content you care about. This starts with uploading and managing your sources. Unlike other AI tools that rely solely on general web knowledge, NotebookLM is designed to ground its responses directly in your uploaded materials.

Example:

As an IT leader managing a multi-cloud strategy, you upload a variety of sources to help analyse performance, costs, and security compliance:

• A detailed cost analysis report on using different cloud providers for specific workloads.
• A project plan for migrating services to a new hybrid cloud architecture.
• A transcript of a roundtable discussion with other IT leaders about best practices for optimising multi-cloud environments.

NotebookLM processes these sources and organises them into a single notebook, enabling you to seamlessly search across documents for key insights. For example, you can ask “What are the cost differences highlighted in the report between AWS and Azure for storage?” or “What migration challenges were mentioned in the roundtable discussion?” This allows you to pull relevant information directly, making it much easier to draft recommendations or make informed decisions on your cloud strategy.

How to use Google NotebookLM Source function:

1. Go to https://notebooklm.google.com and sign in with your Google account.
2. Under ‘Sources’, click on “+ Add”.
3. Choose whether to upload a file from your computer or link to a Google Doc, YouTube video, or podcast episode.

1. Once uploaded, your sources will appear under ‘Sources’.
2. Select only the sources that you want to be analysed by ticking or unticking the boxes next to each source

Pro Tip: Try grouping sources by topic or project. For instance, keep all documents related to a specific course, client, or theme within a single notebook. This enhances contextual understanding and gives you more relevant answers. To go in between boards, simply click on the icon in the top left hand corner and you will be taken to your ‘Welcome to NotebookLM’ homepage, where you can see all existing notes

2. Ask Questions Based on Sources (Chat)

One of the most powerful features of Google NotebookLM is its ability to answer natural language questions based on the content you’ve uploaded. Instead of manually searching through multiple documents, reports, or transcripts, you can simply ask questions, and NotebookLM will provide responses directly grounded in the information from your sources.

This capability is invaluable for IT leaders who need to extract insights efficiently from large volumes of complex technical documentation, research papers, or industry reports. Whether you’re analysing security audits, performance metrics, or compliance documents, this feature helps you save time and ensures you get precise answers backed by relevant data.

Example:

Now, let’s say you’re an IT leader focused on optimising your company’s cloud security posture. You’ve uploaded:

• A comprehensive security audit report from your internal security team, detailing potential vulnerabilities in your cloud environments.
• A whitepaper on the latest cloud security trends and tools.
• A podcast featuring cybersecurity experts discussing how to respond to the increasing frequency of data breaches.

Instead of sifting through these documents manually, you can ask NotebookLM direct questions like:

• “What vulnerabilities were flagged in the internal audit report?”
• “Which security tools are recommended in the whitepaper to prevent data breaches?”
• “What are the key takeaways from the cloud security podcast?”

NotebookLM will sift through the uploaded materials, delivering answers with direct references to the exact sections or timestamps in your documents, so you don’t have to waste time searching for the information yourself. This is especially useful for preparing security updates, presentations, or making quick, informed decisions based on the most recent insights.

How to use Google NotebookLM Chat:

1. Upload Your Sources: Begin by uploading the relevant documents, such as whitepapers, reports, presentations, or transcripts.
2. Navigate to the ‘Chat’ Section: Open your notebook and go to the ‘Chat’ section, where you can interact with NotebookLM.
3. Type Your Question: At the bottom of the interface, type your question in natural language (e.g., “What are the compliance risks in hybrid cloud environments?”). You can also use suggested questions listed in the bubble for further guidance.

4. View the Response: NotebookLM will generate a response, providing relevant answers drawn directly from your sources. It will include citations and quotes with exact references to the sections or paragraphs in the documents you’ve uploaded.

Pro Tip: For more precise answers, you can refine your questions by referencing specific sections or chapters of your documents (e.g., “What are the key takeaways from the compliance section of my hybrid cloud report?”).l

3. Audio Overview

Google NotebookLM’s Audio Overview feature allows users to engage with their uploaded content in an efficient, hands-free way. This tool converts your documents—such as technical reports, strategic plans, and research papers—into a spoken podcast. Ideal for busy professionals, the Audio Overview enables you to quickly review critical information while commuting, in meetings, or multitasking, without needing to read through lengthy texts.

Example: 

Imagine preparing for an executive meeting focused on a detailed hybrid cloud deployment report that spans 50 pages. Rather than reading it all, you upload the document to NotebookLM and generate an Audio Overview. NotebookLM will summarise the key points, highlighting important sections, such as deployment strategies and security considerations. You can even customise the audio summary by specifying to focus on key themes, like security - ensuring that you get exactly the insights you need in a concise format.

How to use Google NotebookLM Audio Overview:

1. Upload Your Documents: Upload your documentation to NotebookLM.
2. Generate or Customise the Audio Summary: In the Audio Overview section, click ‘Generate’ for an automatic summary, or customise it by providing specific instructions (e.g., focus only security).

3. Listen and Review: Click play to listen to the audio summary. You can adjust the playback speed for optimal listening and review the content while multitasking.

4. Notes Integration

Google NotebookLM's Notes Integration feature offers IT leaders a way to seamlessly create and incorporate personalised content into the platform's existing knowledge model. Whether you're annotating important insights, adding context to existing reports, or organising your own thoughts, the Notes feature allows you to make your content part of the system's larger understanding. This integration enhances your ability to customise how the system processes and references your uploaded documents, making it easier to generate more relevant and tailored insights.

Example: 

Imagine you’re reviewing a comprehensive vendor report for a multi-cloud infrastructure project and want to add your own observations or additional context for future reference. Using the Notes Integration feature, you can input your thoughts directly into the system. Later, when querying NotebookLM about the report, your notes will be factored into the analysis, ensuring that your insights are aligned with the generated output.

How to use Google NotebookLM Add Notes:

1. Upload your document to NotebookLM (e.g., policy documents, vendor reports, research papers).
2. Add Your Notes: Navigate to the Notes section within the platform. You’ll find the option to ‘Add note’ where you can input your thoughts, observations, or additional context that you’d like NotebookLM to consider. This could be anything from adding an executive summary to writing key takeaways or even posing questions for deeper exploration.
3. Convert Notes to Sources: After entering your notes, click on ‘Convert to source’. This will transform your notes into a reference point that NotebookLM can draw from when generating answers, summaries, or other insights, integrating them into the model’s processing and ensuring they are considered when querying the system.
4. Review and Use: Once your notes are added, they will be incorporated into future analyses, summaries, or AI-driven workflows, ensuring that the system reflects both your original content and your personalised inputs. This allows for more accurate and context-driven outputs, making it especially useful for decision-makers who need to maintain control over the data and insights that are used.

5. Smart Notes

NotebookLM can summarise and generate structured outlines, bullet points, FAQs or even a Timeline from your uploaded content. This feature is ideal for IT leaders who need to digest large amounts of technical content quickly or wish to create actionable summaries of complex reports, white papers, or internal documentation.

Key features include:

• Briefing Doc: Automatically generates a concise summary of your document, highlighting key themes, important findings, and actionable insights. This is ideal for quickly understanding lengthy technical papers or reports.
• FAQ Generation: Transforms documents into a set of frequently asked questions, helping teams stay aligned and ensuring that important queries are addressed without manual effort. Perfect for onboarding, training, or addressing common security concerns.
• Timeline Creation: Creates a structured timeline from your documents, particularly useful for tracking project milestones, historical security incidents, or compliance progress. It also highlights people mentioned and their roles.
• Study Guide: Generates a study guide summarising the most important content, ideal for prepping teams or training new hires on complex topics, such as cybersecurity protocols or cloud infrastructure best practices.
• Add Note: Customisable option for adding your own annotations or insights directly within the notebook, allowing you to keep track of thoughts or follow-ups related to specific sections of your documents. See here for more info.

Example:

Imagine you're reviewing an in-depth hybrid and multi-cloud strategy ebook to prepare for an upcoming cloud transformation project. By using the ‘Briefing Doc’ option, NotebookLM will automatically summarise the ebook, extracting the main themes, key findings, and essential facts related to hybrid cloud architecture, integration strategies, and multi-cloud security. This allows you to quickly grasp the essential strategies without having to go through the entire document, giving you the insights you need to make strategic decisions for your cloud infrastructure.

How to use Google NotebookLM Smart Notes:

1. Upload Relevant Documents: Upload technical documents such as white papers, vulnerability reports, or internal presentations.
2. Select a Feature: Choose from options like ‘Briefing Doc’, ‘Study Guide’, ‘FAQs’, or ‘Timeline’ depending on your needs. Each option will process the content differently, offering you a tailored output.
3. View the Response: Click on the generated output to review the structured summary, study guide, FAQ list, or timeline. You can refine the content further or add personal notes for further action.

NotebookLM Troubleshooting

While Google NotebookLM offers a seamless and powerful experience, occasional issues may arise. Below are some of the most common issues and how to troubleshoot them:

Common Issues & Fixes:

1. "Upload Failed"

• Cause: File exceeds 100MB or is in an unsupported format (e.g., images, encrypted files).
•  Fix: Ensure the file is under 100MB and in a supported format (PDF, Google Docs, text, or captioned media). Check your internet connection for stability.

2. "Transcript Unavailable"

• Cause: Missing captions in YouTube/podcast content.
• Fix: Verify that captions are enabled on YouTube/podcasts. If not, upload a manual transcript or use content with captions.

3. Inaccurate Answers

• Cause: Poor quality or vague sources/queries.
• Fix: Ensure the sources are clear and well-organised. Refine your questions to be specific and provide additional context.

4. Slow Performance

• Cause: Browser cache, large files, or slow internet connection.
• Fix: Clear your browser cache, switch to Google Chrome, optimise file sizes, and check internet speed for better performance.

5. Sources Not Showing

• Cause: Temporary glitches or upload issues.
• Fix: Refresh the page or re-upload the file. Ensure compatibility with supported formats (PDF, DOCX).

6. Miscellaneous Issues

• Cause: Feature limitations or unresolved technical issues.
• Fix: Be aware of feature restrictions like non-customisable citations. Contact Google Support for persistent issue

Other Important Considerations

Privacy & Security

Google NotebookLM is hosted on Google Cloud, which benefits from Google’s robust privacy infrastructure and data security policies. Google adheres to some of the most stringent security and compliance standards in the industry, ensuring that data is handled securely and in accordance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

However, it is important to note that your data is not used to train future models. This means that the personal, confidential, or proprietary data you upload to NotebookLM will remain private and will not be used to improve Google’s broader language models or any other services.

For IT leaders handling sensitive business data or research, this is a critical feature. NotebookLM provides the assurance that your company’s documents and internal sources won’t be used in ways that could compromise privacy or competitive advantage.

Limitations

While Google NotebookLM is an extremely versatile tool, it does have certain limitations that may affect its use in specific contexts:

• Only Supports English (As of Now) At present, NotebookLM is limited to the English language. This could be a constraint for teams or businesses operating in non-English-speaking regions or for organisations that need support for multiple languages. If your research documents or content are in other languages, NotebookLM won’t be able to process them effectively, and this could limit its application for international use cases.
• Citation Formats Aren’t Customisable While NotebookLM provides citations in a standard format, users cannot currently customise citation styles (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago). This could be an issue for businesses or academics who require specific citation formats for publications or presentations.
• Contextual Quality Depends on the Quality of Uploaded Sources The effectiveness of NotebookLM is heavily influenced by the quality of the content you upload. If the source documents are poorly written, unclear, or disorganised, the model’s output will reflect that. Similarly, for highly technical or niche topics, NotebookLM’s responses may not be as accurate or comprehensive if the data uploaded doesn’t fully cover the area of interest. It is essential to ensure your uploaded content is high quality to get the most out of the platform.
• Limited Integration with External Tools (for Now) At the moment, NotebookLM operates as a standalone tool within the Google ecosystem. While it supports file uploads from Google Docs, PDFs, and YouTube, the integration with external software tools (e.g., project management platforms, CRM systems, or enterprise tools like Salesforce or Jira) is not yet available. This could be a limitation for teams seeking seamless integration with their other workflows.
• Reliance on Captions for Podcasts and Videos NotebookLM’s transcription of podcasts and YouTube videos relies on the availability of captions. If a video or podcast lacks captions, NotebookLM will not be able to transcribe and analyse the content effectively. As such, users need to ensure that any video or audio content they upload has accessible captions or transcripts available.
  

Final Thoughts

Google NotebookLM is a game-changer for anyone working deeply with content—from students writing dissertations to professionals analysing long documents. Its ability to ground outputs in user-uploaded data, synthesise insights, and generate structured content makes it uniquely powerful.

Whether you're ideating, summarising, or interrogating documents, NotebookLM puts an intelligent assistant inside your content.

Start your journey: https://notebooklm.google.com

Deimos is a leading Google Cloud partner and Africa's only Google Cloud partner to hold the esteemed Google Cloud Security Specialisation certification. We empower businesses to build, secure, and scale on Google Cloud, leveraging our deep expertise in cloud migration, DevSecOps, Kubernetes, and AI. Click here to learn more about how Deimos can help you on your cloud journey.