Google Rebrands NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook

NotebookLM, the Gemini-powered research assistant that made its debut back in 2023, is being rebranded to “Gemini Notebook” today. The app will continue its life as a standalone product that coexists with Google’s main Gemini chatbot. However, the company wants Gemini Notebook to stand out as a “premier research tool” that integrates even better with Google Gemini and Google Search.

The killer feature of NotebookLM – sorry, Gemini Notebook – is probably its ability to extract information across different sources, including text, graphs, images, and audio, synthesize it, and transform it into digestible formats including mind maps and audio overviews. Still, it’s quite hard to explain what the app is for to people already hooked to ChatGPT or even the main Google Gemini app.

What’s probably confusing about Gemini Notebook is that the app can organize information into notebooks, but the main Gemini app also has notebooks now. And these notebooks created in Gemini also sync to Gemini Notebook. Moreover, the Gemini app can also use content created in Gemini Notebook as a source. “Soon, we’ll also bring notebooks directly into AI Mode in Search,” Google said today.

Eventually, I think that Google will want to consolidate its Google, Gemini, and Gemini Notebook products into a single app, just like what OpenAI is trying to do with its ChatGPT “superapp” on the desktop. I’d also argue that the “Gemini” brand will probably have to go away at some point, as it will never be as popular as “Google.”

In the meantime, Google announced some updates to Gemini Notebook, which can now use its own secure cloud computer to do its research if you have a Google AI Ultra subscription. This allows Gemini Notebook to write and execute code natively, helping you conduct complex data analysis grounded in your sources,” Google explained today. “It will roll out to all Pro users on the web over the coming weeks, enabling entirely new output formats and deeper analysis.”