NotebookLM = Mind Blown

At this point, we've all had those "oh wow" moments with AI technologies. Using ChatGPT for the first time and seeing a friend demo Heygen stand out for me. Now I can add another to the list: I just tried NotebookLM, Google's AI-powered research assistant and, yup, mind = blown.

The interface is super easy to use; all you do is drop documents, links, copy, video, etc, into the tool. I fed it my two most recent blog posts: one on avoiding shiny object syndrome in AI decision-making and one on how leaders who aren't experts in AI can still lead their teams into the AI age.

It gives you a summary of the documents, but then you can ask it to create a "Deep Dive Conversation" (aka podcast episode) based on the materials you shared. 

It took only about five minutes, then produced this recording:  

NotebookLM created a seamless (and very listenable!) conversation that combines themes and points from each article. Each "deep dive conversation" uses the same two (very human-sounding) AI-generated voices, and the cadence, style, banter, etc, all feel very natural. There were only a couple times when I heard audio hiccups that gave me any idea that I wasn't listening to two humans discussing my blog posts. 😜

Even setting aside the podcast functionality, the use cases here are compelling; this is a great tool for research, summarizing long documents, asking deep questions about the information you upload, etc.

Consider my mind blown yet again by what AI is capable of.