Google recently launched the "Notebooks" function for its Gemini chatbot, providing users with a dedicated space to centrally manage conversations and files, and synchronizing with NotebookLM. This update aims to solve the long-standing problem of difficulty in classifying and organizing different chat contents, bringing Gemini’s information organization capabilities in line with the “Projects” function launched by OpenAI for ChatGPT.
Google said that the newly launched notebook function is currently being pushed to Google AI Ultra/Pro/Plus subscribers on the web in stages. In the next few weeks, it will be expanded to the mobile side, covering more European countries, and gradually opened to free users. It should be noted that notebooks are currently not open to users under 18 years old and Workspace and Education Edition accounts.
In Google's vision, notebooks will evolve into "personal knowledge bases" shared across products, first implemented in Gemini. Officials emphasized that the team is working on adding more capabilities to Gemini that can be deeply integrated with notebooks. Currently, as long as users have a Google AI subscription, they can click "New Notebook" on the Gemini sidebar to migrate existing chats to a notebook, add documents, PDFs and other files, and set exclusive instructions for the notebook to form an independent workspace divided by theme.
Another highlight of this update is that the notebook establishes closer continuity between Gemini and NotebookLM. Sources users add in Gemini automatically appear in NotebookLM, and vice versa. Even notebooks created in Gemini can have their associated assets used directly in NotebookLM for AI-generated capabilities such as Cinematic Video Overviews and infographics. For example, Google said in its blog that students can first add class notes to their notebooks, generate a "movie-style video overview" through NotebookLM, and then generate a paper outline based on the same material in the Gemini application the next day.
Through notebooks, users can not only gather relevant conversations into one location, but more importantly, they can have AI answers based on their own uploaded materials when needed, and combine them with network information when necessary to obtain results that are more relevant to their personal context. It is worth mentioning that notebooks have been one of the core functions of the NotebookLM project since its inception. Now it has been officially introduced into the Gemini ecosystem, marking that Google is further connecting the knowledge management and generative AI capabilities scattered in different products.