Google NotebookLM Upgraded to Gemini 1.5 Pro, Released in India and Other Markets: How it Works

Google’s NotebookLM has received several new features and was expanded to more than 200 countries and regions on Thursday. The AI-powered research and writing assistant was initially unveiled at last year’s Google I/O event as Project Tailwind, and later rolled out to a limited number of users in the US. Now the platform is available to users in India and other countries with features like web URLs and Google Slides as sources, embedded quotes and more. It is also powered by the Gemini 1.5 Pro AI model.

NotebookLM gets new features

After integrating with Gemini 1.5 Pro, the AI ​​model powered by Gemini Advanced, NotebookLM now has multimodal capabilities. This means that users can add images, charts and diagrams to feeds, and the platform will answer questions about them. Previously, he could only read and analyze the text.

NotebookLM platform
Photo credit: Google

Another useful new feature is the inclusion of Google Slides and website URLs as sources. Additionally, users can upload a link to a website or Google Slides file, and the AI ​​chatbot can organize and answer questions on it. The Gemini 1.5 Pro model is again useful here as it allows the chatbot to cycle through the slides. Additionally, users can upload Google Drive resources, PDF files, text files, and copied text.

Furthermore, the platform now displays embedded citations for its generated responses. Hovering over a quote will open the accompanying paragraph from the source for easy fact-checking. Users can also click on a paragraph to dive deeper into the source text. Additionally, NotebookLM also has a deeper level of resource understanding and can generate Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), briefing documents, and study guides when requested.

During a press briefing, Raiza Martin, senior product manager at Google Labs, told Gadgets 360 that the AI ​​model will not be trained on user data or sources in any capacity. Furthermore, reporters were told that since NotebookLM is a closed system, it does not run a web search to answer any question and relies only on information present in the sources.

How to use NotebookLM

1. Go to the NotebookLM website by clicking here.
2. Tap Try NotebookLM.
3. Look for the Sources icon in the left margin.
4. There should be a plus icon next to it. Click on it.
5. Select the desired source mode to load.
6. Select the file or URL you want to use.
7. Now you can type your query in the text field at the bottom.