Google’s NotebookLM can now summarise long YouTube videos and audio files: Here’s how it works

Google

Google's NotebookLM, the artificial intelligence (AI) note-taking and research assistant platform, has received a new update that has added support for YouTube videos in the tool. It expands the platform's functionality and now users can add a YouTube video or an audio file as a source, and also ask AI queries about it.

NotebookLM was initially launched for educators or learning students to make note-taking and research easier. The AI tool allows users to add different external written sources such as a PDF file, a Word document, a Google Doc, or simply copy-pasted blocks of text, and the tool then summarises the written content into key points.

However, via a new blog post, Google has announced that the AI platform will now also accept YouTube videos and audio files as sources. Hence, you can copy a public YouTube video URL and use it on NotebookLM to generate major points in a summarized form discussed in the YouTube video or audio.

A transcript of the video will also be generated in audio form and will be shareable to explore the topics further using inline citations. Users can watch the video in the future for added context or better understanding. This feature is particularly useful for students who record their lectures to go through them later or for writers who would like a summary of a long informative video.

Additionally, NotebookLM users can add handwritten notes or slides to create study guides. The Audio Overview feature also allows users to share these transcripts with a single tap.