Many of you reading this most likely have heard of NotebookLM before; some of you may have even played around with it, but for those of you who haven’t, what is it? And is it a good tool for studying, despite being an AI platform? As someone who usually is against using AI for academic purposes, I was initially very skeptical of NotebookLM, until being told by a friend of mine that it can be used to condense information used for things you’ve written, like tabletop games or stories, so I finally decided to try it out and see if it’s any good. 

After a few days of playing around with it, I found that I really appreciated how it only pulls from the materials you provide, rather than from the entire internet. For example, if you upload your class notes, it will rely solely on those, allowing you to generate flashcards, data tables, infographics, and even tests. These outputs are usually very accurate. If you don’t have notes, you can submit almost anything: documents, slides, PDFs, or websites. The only drawback is that NotebookLM cannot follow links, so if you want information about something that a webpage links to, you have to upload the page with the information, rather than providing the link to it. 

Overall, I personally believe that NotebookLM is a very worthwhile study tool. Since it’s free with a Google account, it’s accessible to most students or anyone looking to turn their materials into flashcards or quick study guides.