Google’s latest update for its AI-powered research tool NotebookLM can turn the materials you want to pore over into a podcast-like audio discussion with the new feature called Audio Overview. This feature takes information from documents you’ve uploaded and generates a “deep dive” discussion between two AI hosts, summarizing sources and finding links between different topics while bantering back and forth. The AI hosts sound human-like, although their AI-generated nature can still be discerned from inflections and odd pronunciations. While Google admits the feature’s limitations in only being able to speak English, sometimes sharing inaccurate information, not allowing interruptions, and taking several minutes for larger files, they are excited to bring audio to NotebookLM to cater to those who learn better through listening to conversations. Initially launched in 2023 as a digital assistant for document queries, in June this year, Google announced the expansion of NotebookLM to over 200 countries and territories with new features and tools in Gemini 1.5 Pro.
