Tushar Mehta / Android Authority
In spite of my job’s demands to keep up with AI, I have been a skeptic for a long time. AI is impressive, but it’s genuinely not accessible for all — not just for its cost, but also for the grit and constant iteration of prompts to master the result. However, if there’s one product that has reshaped my views, it is NotebookLM, which has truly transformed how I consume information, for reasons other than the fact that it takes excessive prompt engineering out of the question.
I have offloaded the unexciting aspects of learning to NotebookLM. That includes boring marketing or business newsletters, research papers, and video essays that I want to imbibe the best of, but without watching the idle chatter that those presenters engage in before getting to the point. You name it, and NotebookLM helps sort it out. And, one NotebookLM feature that particularly does most of the heavy lifting for me is Audio Overview. I’m inclined to believe it is also NotebookLM’s star performer — the feature that gets used the most.
Despite my admiration for NotebookLM, I believe a few additions could make it more efficient. For inspiration, we need look no further than Google’s own YouTube. But before I begin my account, I’d love to hear if you share my affection for NotebookLM.
Have you used NotebookLM's Audio Overview feature? If yes, what do you think about it? 4 votes It's great! I use it very often. 50 % I like it but it could use more features. 25 % I've yet to find it useful. 0 % I don't use it all. 25 % I haven't heard of Audio Overview. 0 % Something else (comment below) 0 %
Fundamental features NotebookLM needs
Andy Walker / Android Authority
The one NotebookLM feature I keep passionately telling everyone about — like I did to you above — is Audio Overview. In the rare event that you are unfamiliar with what it does, Audio Overview generates a podcast using AI, where two artificial hosts converse to explain a feature. The information is broken down into manageable chunks to make it easier to grasp, and the tone employed here is typically casual, engaging, and friendly.
Like I said above, I actively rely on it to consume any dry, expansive, or stretched-out chunk of knowledge, and consume those AI-generated podcasts while I’m burning elbow grease for chores, walking the dog, driving, etc. But while I do so, there are a few features I think would make NotebookLM and Audio Overview far more useful.
And so, the first change I hope for NotebookLM to adopt is the ability to save track progress. Picture this: a 15-minute Audio Overview condenses all the information you would otherwise spend a similar (or in some cases, more ) time reading through or listening to the actual source. So long as you listen to it in one go, it’s all great. And with the recently added Interactive feature, you can even interrupt the speakers or steer the conversation in a way that will ensure that you truly learn something valuable.
Tushar Mehta / Android Authority
However, if there’s a shortage of time — or you’re not in the correct headspace to actually absorb information, you would be inclined to leave it in the middle and hopefully return to it later at a better time. I don’t know about you, but I do that all the time with long articles or videos that I’m curious to read or watch but not immediately.
Now, when I return to NotebookLM to resume the podcast — and if I do after a while, the app has either been cleared from the background or killed due to inactivity — I’m bound to start from the beginning and scrub my way to the point I have already listened to.
Minor inconvenience, most will scoff, I know! But I would be much more at peace if I didn’t have to do it. I would be happy if NotebookLM could save my progress with a specific track, allowing me to pick up right from where I had disengaged previously. YouTube already does that, so we know it’s not impossible.
I would willingly pay Google extra to manage NotebookLM tracks for me, just as YouTube does.
But you know what would make me happier? It’s when NotebookLM would not only save my track progress but also synchronize it across multiple devices where I use the platform. Again, that’s not entirely impossible, since NotebookLM already syncs different notebooks along with generated insights, mind maps, as well as audio and video overviews across devices. That would be especially useful while using NotebookLM’s mobile apps.
The only perceivable challenge, perhaps, for Google would be to allocate additional memory to store data on how far a particular track has progressed. For billions of users, that could be a humongous cost for their separate vaults. But isn’t personalization the entire selling point for AI? I would readily pay for a machine to perform the trivial task for me. It’s better than passing butter, at least!
However, while I agree to pay extra, I hope Google doesn’t make its subscriptions messier in the process.
Optional features it could use
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Besides track syncing features I mentioned above, I hope Notebook also gets a few extra perks. The first of them is the ability to make Audio Overview tracks public and share them with others. This isn’t technically impossible, but when you share an Audio Overview with others, you share the entire notebook with them by default, which also means sharing all additional notes.
The other way around is to download tracks as music files and share them via messaging or email apps. But, hey Google, while we’re at that, why don’t we share those files over Bluetooth and pretend it’s 2005 all over again?
Exchanging tracks with public links will also make it easier to share them on social media and allow conversations around topics instead of limiting them to ourselves. Indeed, a bit strenuous and excessive, as some of you might argue, but not difficult for a data behemoth such as Google.
NotebookLM could benefit from implementing social features, like YouTube.
Stressing the social opportunities, it wouldn’t hurt for NotebookLM to also allow comments right within Audio Overview beyond our professional or social circle. It could be the initiation of an interactive and social AI that participates in conversations alongside human users, learns from those interactions, and utilizes that knowledge for future conversations. And to prevent negative comments from evading the essence of the conversations, the owners of the notebook could control what to share publicly and what to keep private.
AI needs to be more social, and Google can start with NotebookLM
Andy Walker / Android Authority
While Audio Overview is just one of the many great features marketed as a part of NotebookLM, I would appreciate a little more attention towards it. I even strongly believe Audio Overview could be eventually spun off as a separate product, which could even plug the gap that Google Podcasts left. I was personally affected by that because I kept my distance from Spotify and heavily relied on Google Podcasts. And while YouTube Music has been proposed to succeed it, a separate app would be truly appreciated. Implementing those YouTube features I suggested above could be the first step in that direction.
While I’m suggesting these changes to occur, knowing Google’s reputation and proclivity to kill products rather than iterate and fix them, I also know they might never be implemented. However, that wouldn’t stop me from hoping for my current favorite Google tool to be more useful than being limited to serving as a study assistant or tutor — an identity which, I believe, is curtailing NotebookLM’s potential.
Follow