NotebookLM
NotebookLM is Google's research assistant that reads your own documents (reports, PDFs, transcripts, web pages) and lets you ask questions, generate summaries, and turn the pile into a podcast-style audio rundown or a set of narrated slides.
The free path: Free Standard tier (100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, 50 daily chats, 3 Audio and 3 Video Overviews per day, 10 Deep Research reports per month, no credit card).
Pricing
Free Standard tier (100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook, 50 daily chats, 3 Audio and 3 Video Overviews per day, 10 Deep Research reports per month, no credit card). Paid tiers add higher limits: Google AI Plus at $7.99 a month, AI Pro at $19.99 a month, and AI Ultra at $99.99 to $200 a month.
As reported in our 30 May 2026 issue.
Try it in 3 steps
- Go to notebooklm.google.com, create a notebook, and drop in your sources: upload PDFs and Word docs, paste links, or add a Google Doc. The free plan holds 50 sources per notebook.
- Ask it questions in plain language ("What are the three biggest risks in this contract?"). Every answer cites the exact source passage, so you can trust it and verify fast.
- When you need to brief someone (or yourself on a commute), click "Audio Overview" for a podcast-style summary, or "Deep Research" to send it off to write a sourced report you can skim later.
Where we covered it
- 30 May 2026, Tool of the Week: Who Still Gives AI Away for Free?
More research tools
- Perplexity Deep Research
You ask one hard research question.
Tool of the Week · last covered 13 Jun 2026
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