Gemini Notebook

Gemini Notebook has been the new name of NotebookLM since July 2026: Google's tool for studying and researching from your own documents (checked in September 2026). Unlike the Gemini chat, which answers with everything it knows, Gemini Notebook works on the sources you give it and shows you where each answer comes from.

The name is misleading, because it sounds like just another feature inside Gemini. It isn't: it's still a separate product, with its notebooks, and Google has explained the name change by its closer integration with the rest of its services. If you were already using NotebookLM, you don't have to move anything; your notebooks and sources are still where they were. The practical rule for choosing is simple: the Gemini chat for general questions, ideas or looking something up; Gemini Notebook when you have a specific pile of documents (a syllabus, a contract, a program's documentation) and want to understand it without the AI straying beyond it.

I've been using it for months, since it was called NotebookLM, so I can tell you about it from real use and not just from what Google announces. In "What I really use NotebookLM for" I explain my real uses, what it does better than a chat, what it does badly or doesn't do and how I combine it with Claude, which is the AI I work with almost all the time.