NotebookLM is a research assistant powered by Gemini that draws on expertise from storytelling to present information in an engaging way. It allows users to upload their own documents and generate insights, explanations, and—more recently—podcasts. This innovative feature, also known as audio overviews, has captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide, who have created thousands of engaging podcasts ranging from personal narratives to educational explainers using source materials like CVs, personal journals, sales decks, and more.
Join Raiza Martin and Steven Johnson from Google Labs, Google’s testing ground for products, as they guide host Hannah Fry through the technical advancements that have made NotebookLM possible. In this episode they’ll explore what it means to be interesting, the challenges of generating natural-sounding speech, as well as exciting new modalities on the horizon.
Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
03:05 Hannah’s PhD
04:23 Reactions to audio overviews
08:45 Origins of NotebookLM
10:42 Source grounding
14:05 A tool for writers
15:22 Journaling
17:31 Why podcasts?
19:29 Evolution of audio generation technology
20:25 Interestingness
25:52 Soon to come capabilities
27:40 Hallucinations
29:09 Humor
32:00 Criticisms of the tools
39:10 Privacy
40:55 Future modalities
42:52 Limits of AI content creation
42:33 Hannah’s reflections
Further reading:
Try NotebookLM here:
Learn more about audio generation:
Thanks to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to:
Presenter: Professor Hannah Fry
Series Producer: Dan Hardoon
Editor: Rami Tzabar, TellTale Studios
Commissioner & Producer: Emma Yousif
Music composition: Eleni Shaw
Camera Director: Daniel Lazard
Audio Engineer: Perry Rogantin
Video Studio Production: Nicholas Duke
Video Editor: Alex Baro Cayetano, Daniel Lazard
Video Production Design: James Barton
Visual Identity and Design: Eleanor Tomlinson
Commissioned by Google DeepMind
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