NotebookLM gets redesign & ‘Joining’ Audio Overviews, ‘Plus’ tier coming to Google One

After dropping the experimental status in October, Google is rolling out a big update to NotebookLM that includes a redesign, while the Plus tier is beginning to go live.

Google is starting to roll out the experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Flash introduced on Wednesday to NotebookLM.

NotebookLM is getting a three-column design that “fluidly adapts to your needs,” starting with a “Sources” panel that you can shrink down to a navigation rail or expand to view your document.  The middle “Chat” panel is the conversation AI interface to task questions and view responses. Finally, the “Studio “ panel lets you access the Audio Overview, Study Guide, Briefing Doc, notes, and more. The goal of this redesign is to make it “easier than ever to switch between those different activities in a single, unified interface.”

Meanwhile, Audio Overviews are getting a new “Interactive mode” (in beta) to “Join” a conversation. This goes beyond the initial prompting and lets you ask the “hosts for more details or to explain a concept differently” with your voice after you’re called on (“I think our listener has got something to say”).

It’s like having a personal tutor or guide who listens attentively, and then responds directly, drawing from the knowledge in your sources.

This is gradually rolling out to new Audio Overviews and Google warns how as an experiment “hosts may also pause awkwardly before responding and may occasionally introduce inaccuracies.”

Finally, NotebookLM Plus is launching today for enterprise. It’s meant for organizations/businesses “via Google Workspace or can be purchased separately via Google Cloud.,” but it’s also coming to Google One AI Premium ($19.99 per month) in early 2025. 

Users will get “5x” more Audio Overviews (3 on free vs 20 with Plus), 500 (versus 100) notebooks, 500 (vs. 50) chat queries per day, and 300 (vs. 50) sources per notebook,” as well as premium features like:

• Sharing a “Chat-only” notebook – You can customize how you share your notebook with other users now. You can give others access to the entire notebook including sources and notes, or give them chat-only access. Learn more about sharing a “Chat-only” notebook here.
• Advanced chat settings – You can customize your notebook by choosing preferred response style (for example ‘Guide’ or ‘Analyst’) or create a custom style based on your needs. You can also select the output length (for example, ‘Longer’ or ‘Shorter’). Learn more about Advanced chat settings here.
• Notebook analytics – Once you have shared your notebook with others, you can view data on how many users have accessed it per day, and how many queries they’ve made per day in the last week. Learn more about Notebook analytics in NotebookLM Plus.