NotebookLM can now summarize YouTube videos

You can now upload YouTube videos and audio files to NotebookLM, an AI-powered summarizing tool for education and research. The update means Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro-powered virtual assistant can now handle Google Docs, PDFs, text files, Google Slides, YouTube video URLs, audio files and web pages. This expands NotebookLM’s potential sources to include lecture recordings, informative YouTube content and group discussions. Google claims that it securely stores all information uploaded to NoteBookLM and does not use it to train AI.

Google launched the virtual research assistant in the summer of 2023 and upgraded it to run on Gemini 1.5 Pro this past June. Alongside the AI-powered bump, Google expanded NotebookLM to be available in over 200 countries and territories. Most recently, Google added Audio Overview to NotebookLM. The tool has two AI hosts — hopefully not foreshadowing what hosting will look like in the future — discuss your sources, summarize material and “banter.” Google is now adding the ability to share Audio Overviews with others through a public URL.

The irony here is that the reason we’d need an AI to briefly summarize a YouTube video in the first place is because Google incentivized the creation of ever-longer videos.