NotebookLM Tutorial: 6 Use Cases You Haven't Thought Of

Books, articles, videos, podcasts, social media.  There is so much information out there today, and the future will belong to those people who can  make sense of it all. But fortunately, we've got some superb AI tools popping up, and Google's  NotebookLM is one of them.

Now, NotebookLM is like having ChatGPT for a restricted set of  information. You control the source material depending on what you want to learn. And in this  tutorial, I'll show you exactly how to use it to study and learn quickly, and I'll show you six  unexpected ways you can use it too.

Let's dive in. To access NotebookLM, go to the following website.  You can click on the card in the top right, or you can click on the link in the description below. 

Once you're on the site, click on Try NotebookLM. Then sign in using a Google account, and I'll  see you on the other side. Let's start with the most obvious use case for NotebookLM, which  is to study and learn something new.

Click on the Create button to create your first notebook.  Now, a notebook is like ChatGPT, but only for the information that you provide. That information  comes in the form of sources.

You can upload documents or audio, Google Docs or Google Slides,  links, YouTube videos, and just regular text, and you can upload up to 50 sources, which is  more than enough for most use cases. Let's say you're a student, and you're trying to learn what  led to the fall of the Roman Empire. You started your research, and you found a bunch of articles  on the topic, and now you want to learn all this information quickly.

No problem. Let's open a  couple of these articles in new tabs by holding the Control key and clicking on the link. So  that's one from history.

com, and then we'll also add the Wikipedia article. Okay, we've now  got two articles in other tabs. Let's go to the first tab.

We'll copy the link in the address bar,  and then we'll go back to NotebookLM. Next, let's click the Website button under the Link header.  We'll go back to full screen, then paste the link into the text box, and click the Insert button.

In a few seconds after the source is added, you'll get a Notebook Guide. Already, you have a really  quick summary. You can create an FAQ or a study guide.

You can create and listen to a podcast  discussing this article, and NotebookLM suggests some questions you can ask it about the article.  But we're not done yet. Let's add our second article by clicking on the plus icon next to the  sources header.

Let's add the Wikipedia page with the same process. We'll copy the link from the  address bar, and then go back to NotebookLM, then click on the Website button, and paste the  URL in like last time, and press Insert. Now, I've got two other sources I want to add.

One of  them is a PDF article on the fall of the Roman Empire, which I'll drag and drop into the Upload  Sources pane. And I've got a YouTube video that I want to incorporate. So, this time, I can click  on the YouTube button, paste the YouTube URL, and then click the Insert button.

Now we've  got all our sources in, let's use this first suggested question to learn what really happened  to the Roman Empire. And look at that. The answer is a thoughtful compilation of all the sources  provided.

Did you notice the citations too? If you click on any number in a circle, you can refer  to the original source content for context. So that's the most obvious way to use NotebookLM,  and we'll go through more of the options in a minute.

But I first want to expand your mind on  how you can use this software. And that leads to unexpected use case number one, compiling very  dense and even conflicting research material. Now, if you've ever read a scientific paper or study,  you know that they can be really dense and require a dedicated amount of time to go through them. 

And if you have multiple studies to go through, then you need an entire afternoon blocked  out. Instead, let's add all these papers to NotebookLM. We'll add these four studies as PDFs  by uploading them directly.

Now I'm ready to chat with my notebook, and it's like I'm talking to  the authors of the papers directly. Once again, we have a thoughtful response with citations.  Let's take a look at another NotebookLM feature by clicking on the Notebook Guide.

Let's say you  needed to study and learn this material. Click on the Study Guide button in the top left. NotebookLM  gives you several questions you can use to test your understanding of the material, as well as an  answer key.

You can close this note by clicking outside of it. You can save your own notes to this  pane by clicking on the Add Note button. If you click on the note, you'll see you have a pretty  basic editor for making new notes.

You can put any text that you like in here. I've just copied and  pasted something from another paper to show you something cool. So, let's exit out of this.

Next,  you can click this check mark to select the note, and then you can chat with your Notebook about a  specific note. Let's click the Help Me Understand button. This can really help you break down  complex concepts.

And remember, if you want to save any chat response, make sure to click the  Save to Note button in the bottom right. Finally, sometimes you just want an overview of the  concepts. So, click on Notebook Guide again, and then click on Briefing Dock in the top left. 

And voila, you get a summary of all the sources in your Notebook. This is also saved as a note in  your Notebook. Unexpected use case number two, summarize your books.

Now it's beyond the scope  of this tutorial, but there are some Kindle books that you can convert to PDFs, so you can load them  into NotebookLM. We'll link to the software in the description below. I'm in a new Notebook, and  I've got a PDF of this book called Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush.

Now, just like before, when  the Notebook Guide comes up, we have the same set of options. For a book summary, you could generate  a briefing dock, but let's try an FAQ this time. This summarizes the key points in a different  way than we'd normally expect.

From here, you can go into the chat and ask about any topic in  more depth. Now here's unexpected use case number three. Turn your books into a personal coach to  give you advice and evaluate your work.

So far, we've just loaded NotebookLM with public  knowledge, but to get real power, you can put your own knowledge in it. Now, privacy experts  may cringe, but Google claims not to use your personal data that you upload to train NotebookLM.  So, let's ask NotebookLM to coach us on how to use Product-Led Growth at the Kevin Cookie Company. 

We'll add a new source and then click on Website. This time, we'll put in the Website for the  Kevin Cookie Company and then click Insert. Now, we can start chatting like before, but this  time, let's create our very own podcast, which focuses specifically on this topic.

And yes,  you heard that right. If you are someone who loves to listen to podcasts to learn, this is for you.  You have two options to generate a podcast.

The first is to click the Generate button and you'll  get a general overview of the topics from all the sources, or you can click the Customize button.  With Customize, you can configure things like the specific topic or even the specific audience. So,  I'll tell the AI to make a podcast about 10 to 20 minutes long, focused on practical advice that  the Kevin Cookie Company should use for its new app.

Let's click Generate. This is going to take  a few minutes, so we'll come back in a bit. So, let's play some of this and you can judge for  yourself.

All right, so the Kevin Cookie Company is jumping into the app world, and they want to  build in that product-led growth, PLG, right from the start. That's a good idea. We've got some info  about their company.

And also, we're going to be using Wes Bush's book, Product-Lid Growth, as our  guides here. It is. In the next 15 minutes or so, let's try to come up with some of those essential  first tactics for launching this app with PLG, ready to get started.

Let's get those ovens  preheated. All right. So, it's not just reading out a document, it's actually got some personality  behind it.

Unexpected use case number four, acute and chronic pain support. Now we are not medical  professionals, this is not medical advice, always talk to your doctor. That said, how many of you  have ever looked up symptoms you're experiencing?

Guilty. So, let's say you're experiencing some  low back pain and you go to YouTube University to figure it out. You find a couple videos you like,  and here's the first one.

Then you click insert, just like before. You add a few more videos to  show up and now you can start asking questions. You can ask a first level question like, what  movement pattern should I avoid with this type of pain?

And you'll get a simple answer. And  just like before, you'll get citations. Or you can ask a higher-level question, which puts you  more in control of your own care.

For example, if I'm experiencing this pain, what sorts  of exercises might be helpful for me to ask input from my doctor on? And if we close this  side panel, you start to get some ideas about higher level conversations you can have with your  caretaker. And again, this is not medical advice, so make sure you talk with your doctor  first.

Unexpected use case number five, drafting your annual review. Everyone loves that  time of year, right? When you have to sit in front of a blank screen thinking about how to sell  all of your accomplishments over the past year, I didn't think so.

But this can make it a lot  easier. Now you save the emails that talk about all the great stuff you did throughout  the year, right? Well, if you don't, you're going to want to after this.

So, let's  pretend we're a guy named Michael and we work in IT. Michael has saved several emails from his  coworkers saying what a great job he's done this year. And he's going to save them as PDFs and  then upload them to NotebookLM.

Then in the chat, he'll ask NotebookLM for an annual review that  highlights his performance and his impact and how he's done it using the company values. There  you go. When you want something like this to start with instead of a blank canvas.

Unexpected  use case number six, sell yourself better. Most of us struggle to talk about ourselves. But when  you're in an interview, you have to get the job.

This can spark some new ideas on how to share your  accomplishments. This time in NotebookLM, upload your resume. I'm going to use Michael's resume  from the last use case as an example.

This time add a podcast and customize it using the following  prompt. We're asking NotebookLM to tell the story of Michael's professional accomplishments to a  hiring manager considering Michael for a position. Let's see what it comes up with.

This time I'll  skip past the intro so you can hear more of the meat. At a 30% increase in network stability.  Right.

I mean, what does that mean for your company, right, as a hiring manager? Sure. You're  thinking if your network goes down-- Productivity plummets.

Your employees can't work. You're losing  money. Yeah.

Customers are frustrated. Yeah. Your reputation takes a hit.

I mean, that 30% bump,  that's huge in terms of just keeping everything running smoothly. So yes, it might sound a  little contrived, but you might also find a new way to talk about your impact. So now you've seen  NotebookLM is a crazy powerful tool.

But remember, this is a research tool from Google Labs, so  I personally wouldn't get too attached to this for long-term projects. If you've got another cool  use case, share with us in the comments, and don't forget to give us a like and subscribe. It really  helps us with the algorithm.

I'll see you soon.