NotebookLM, Google’s AI note-taking app, can now summarize and help you dig deeper into YouTube videos. The new capability works by analyzing the text in a YouTube video’s transcript, including autogenerated ones.
Once you add a YouTube link to NotebookLM, it will use AI to provide a brief summary of key topics discussed in the transcript. You can then click on these topics to get more detailed information as well as ask questions. (If you’re struggling to come up with something to ask, NotebookLM will suggest some questions.)
When I dropped in The Verge’s iPhone 16 Pro review, NotebookLM generated topics discussed in the video like “Apple Intelligence,” “iPhone 16 Pro Camera,” and “Photo processing” in its chat window.
After clicking on some of the topics, I found that NotebookLM backs up the information provided in its chat window with a citation that links you directly to the point in the transcript where it’s mentioned. You can also create an Audio Overview based on the content, which is a podcast-style discussion hosted by AI.
I found that the feature worked on most of the videos I tried, except for ones published within the past two days or so.
While Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot can both summarize YouTube videos with transcripts, NotebookLM gives you some jumping-off points you can use to learn more about a topic. In addition to adding support for YouTube videos, Google announced that NotebookLM now supports audio recordings as well, allowing you to search transcribed conversations for certain information and create study guides.