Google simply added a brand new customization instrument for the viral AI podcasts in its NotebookLM software program. I bought early entry and examined it out utilizing Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis because the supply materials, spending a number of hours producing podcasts concerning the seminal novella—a few of them extra unhinged than others.
Released by Google Labs in 2023 as an experimental, AI-focused writing tool, NotebookLM has been having fun with a resurgence in consumer curiosity since early September, when the builders added an choice to generate podcast-like conversations between two AI voices—one male-sounding and one female-sounding—from uploaded paperwork. While these audio “deep dives” can be utilized for learning and productiveness, most of the viral clips on-line targeted on the leisure issue of asking robotic hosts to debate weird or extremely private supply paperwork, like a LinkedIn profile.
Raiza Martin, who leads the NotebookLM staff inside Google Labs, is pumped to offer customers extra management over the content material of those artificial podcasts. “It’s the number one feature we’ve heard people request,” she says. “They want to provide a little bit of feedback as to what the deep dive focuses on.” According to Martin, that is the primary replace of many coming down the pipeline.
Nearing the one yr anniversary of its full launch, NotebookLM can be dropping the “experimental” tag—an indication it’s not headed in direction of the perpetual Google graveyard of deserted software program, or not less than for now. Martin says this label was eliminated because the staff hit inner milestones for general high quality, consumer retention, and interface requirements. She additionally says customers can now anticipate the next stage of stability from the software program.
How to Customize the AI Podcasts
To make an AI podcast utilizing NotebookLM, open up the Google Labs website and begin a New Notebook. Then, add any supply paperwork you want to be used for the audio output. These will be something from recordsdata in your pc to YouTube hyperlinks.
Next, if you click on on the Notebook information, you’ll now see the choice to generate a deep dive in addition to the choice to customise it first. Choose Customize and add your immediate for the way you’d just like the AI podcast to return out. The software program suggests that you simply contemplate what sections of the sources you’d like highlighted, bigger subjects you need additional explored, or completely different meant audiences who you need the message to achieve.
One tip Martin shares for attempting out the brand new characteristic is to generate the Audio Overview with out adjustments, and when you’re listening to this primary iteration, write down any burning questions you might have or subjects you would like it expanded on. Afterwards, use these notes as a launching pad to create your prompts for NotebookLM and regenerate that AI podcast together with your pursuits in thoughts.
My First Impressions
I uploaded an 80-page file of Kafka’s well-known work of existential literature—in it, the principle character wakes up one morning to seek out that he has changed into a huge bug—to see how the customization will work for NotebookLM customers. The first Audio Overview it generated, sans immediate customization, was a stable, albeit broad overview of what occurs within the novella, in addition to some dialogue of its key themes. Nothing groundbreaking, however first rate.
Thinking like a nerdy faculty English main, which I positively was, my first immediate adjustment was for the podcast dialogue to focus extra on themes of alienation and overbearing bureaucracy discovered within the ebook. With the additional nudge, this output from NotebookLM did an admirable job of zeroing in on these motifs and producing a dialogue that sounded just like what I’ve heard earlier than in faculty lecture rooms. It was a bit meandering, however completely listenable.
