Lunch & learn

I was a blown away this week by Google’s latest “experimental” AI tool called NotebookLM. NotebookLM provides a digital research project space, allowing you to upload documents and add links to online sources, then leverage Google’s AI to help you understand and work through the material. It’s a great study tool, and while it's been out for some time now, earlier this month they added a new feature that seriously impressed me. It’s called Audio Overview, and it generates a lively podcast out of whatever source materials you add to your NotebookLM project, complete with natural-sounding radio-host banter. To test it out, I provided a link to a 101-page PDF report released this week by the United Nations AI Advisory Body. It generated a text summary and proposed some relevant questions to explore the content of the doc almost right away, but the Audio Overview feature takes significantly more time to generate so I got it going then went on with my day. When I checked back later there was a roughly 9 minute audio recording ready for me to listen to while I ate my lunch. As it started playing I nearly dropped my spoon into my soup.

Check it out:

The production quality is shockingly good. There are a few instances when it’s obvious that it isn’t a real conversation between two people, like when the voices try to interject a little too enthusiastically or a bit awkwardly, but overall it’s pretty convincing.

It'll be interesting to see how Google eventually monetizes this product, because I can’t imagine it will be free forever. Until then, I plan to make some podcasts of Wikipedia pages that I can listen to while having lunch or doing chores. At least it will give me a break from screens.

If you have thoughts or feelings about this, I'd love to hear them in the comments.