Note: This article was first published on 4 April 2025.
Google's NotebookLM is getting a ton of handy AI-powered tools to make self-learning even more OP. Image: Google.
School’s pretty fun, but studying can really suck sometimes. You can suck a little less if you know how to breeze through your cirriculum, and AI can help with that.
Google’s NotebookLM is an AI-powered note-taking and studying assistant. It’s relatively new, having been around since 2023. That said, Google is adding many features to its tool to help young and adult students get the extra edge in mastering course materials.
The following new features in NotebookLM were announced recently (3 April 2024), and we’re highlighting them below so you can finish your semester strongly.
All the mind maps, none of the time-wasting
NotebookLM’s new Mind Map feature can help users create mind maps and visualise their study materials. It structures your notes and sources, and helps build connections between concepts that do not appear related at first glance.
It’s also interactive, letting you zoom in and click to see topical summaries.
The best part? You upload your materials, and the mind map is automatically created. That's bonkers. Why wasn't this available when we were studying?!
Google created this feature because existing users claimed it helps improve their understanding, especially when approaching challenging topics. Give it a go and see if it helps you as well.
Find more sources and study materials
NotebookLM now simplifies supplementary reading and learning with a click of a button. The newly added Discover button will try to understand your notes and then serve you a curated list of relevant sources from the Internet.
Google said it can present up to 10 sources at once, and it works with other NotebookLM features like Audio Overviews, Briefing Docs, and FAQs.
Of course, how you use Discover is entirely up to you. It can either help you improve your mastery over a topic or support and cite your work. We wish we had this when we were still in school, because that could've saved us hundreds of hours of fruitlessly digging through tomes and links.
Support for PDFs, images, graphs, and other diagrams
Not all learning happens via the written word. NotebookLM now recognises content found in other file formats, such as PDFs.
Google said it’s also expanding support for images and graphs for PDFs, on top of supporting PDFs fed via URLs.
Where to find Google's NotebookLM
Let us know if you find these tools helpful, and share them with your fellow students so everyone has more time to do what they enjoy after studying.
Source: Google (blog)
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