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NotebookLM

Hacker Approved

AI research assistant in AI tools

People like it for summarizing and studying their own documents, with citations, fewer hallucinations and audio podcast overviews; critics find the podcast banter repetitive and the source-only focus limiting.

People like it for summarizing and studying their own documents, with citations, fewer hallucinations and audio podcast overviews; critics find the podcast banter repetitive and the source-only focus limiting.

147 people gave an opinion

recommend it
107
criticize it
40
approval share
73%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 12 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: recommended
  5. March 2026: recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: recommended
  8. June 2026: recommended
  9. July 2026: recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it carries the badge

  • 107 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 2.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

What people say about it

The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Why people recommend it

Each mark is one comment

  • Audio podcast overviews

    “The damned podcast presented the material in a way that helped explained the topic more than my article did.”

    Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you retain what you learn from podcasts?”

    “I fed my core curated lessons into NotebookLM to generate supplemental podcasts, slides, and flashcards”

    Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Swalpa – Spoken Kannada learning platform built with Antigravity”

    “I'm actually pretty astonished by it's audio overviews and the insights/summaries it's able to do”

    Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “AI's real superpower: consuming, not creating”
  • Summarizes and synthesizes documents

    “The pro tip is pasting such long ToS into NotebookLM and asking it to list e.g. top 5 surprising clauses”

    Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use may imply consent [pdf]”

    “it was good for synthesizing multiple documents in a way chatgpt or google's ai overview couldn't”

    Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

    “It not only gave me the fallacies in their reasoning, but also an excellent counter argument”

    Comment from 30 May 2026 in “The Dead Economy Theory”
  • Grounded in your sources

    “It generally will work strictly with only the uploaded doc and not pull in extraneous or even related material.”

    Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Ask HN: Why do people hate using AI so much?”

    “relies 100% on the sources you provide, such as PDFs, audio files, YouTube videos, Google Docs”

    Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “NotebookLM: The AI that only learns from you”

    “notebook LM is still much much better at not hallucinating compared to claude and chatgpt”

    Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”
  • Helps learning new topics

    “I used it most key to learn about history. There isn't much damage if it got 1600s or 1700s detail wrong.”

    Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”

    “I fed my core curated lessons into NotebookLM to generate supplemental podcasts, slides, and flashcards”

    Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Swalpa – Spoken Kannada learning platform built with Antigravity”

    “I'd basically take the slides and throw them into NotebookLM and get way better lectures”

    Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Podcast banter annoying, repetitive

    “NotebookLM/Gemini Notebook sorta does this, but the two-person podcast format is kind of annoying and it can't pronounce math.”

    Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

    “I hate sitting through the patter of how "we're not political, just reporting the views of the sources."”

    Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

    “One minor thing that I find annoying is that the narrators switch roles in the middle of conversation.”

    Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”
  • Limited to uploaded sources

    “you had to give it URLs or docs, you couldn't just have it search for docs and then incorporate them into your research”

    Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

    “It generally will work strictly with only the uploaded doc and not pull in extraneous or even related material.”

    Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Ask HN: Why do people hate using AI so much?”

    “notebooklm is insular and doesnt have the research and imaging features of gemini”

    Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Skills for organizations, partners, the ecosystem”
  • Oversimplifies or misses key points

    “it illustrates the obvious, easy to understand things in the brief, and misses (or oversimplifies) most of the hard technical parts”

    Comment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Can LLMs Perform Deep Technical Comprehension of Computer Architecture Papers”

    “Otherwise you may very well be missing anything really surprising or novel.”

    Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”

What people recommend instead

The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

NotebookLM compared with 1 alternative
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
NotebookLMThis page1074073%12—Approved
Gemini Notebook8657%5——

What people said

40 of the 166 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“you can probably upload documents to LMNotebook and punch in a question”

RecommendsComment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Sezwhere – Ask any document "where does it say that?" (built on Jev)”

“NotebookLM is way more popular in the real world than anthropic work or crap like that.”

RecommendsComment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking”

“Now, we have an incredible amount of information & tech at our fingertips: LLMs, Google NotebookLM, online tutors”

RecommendsComment from 11 Aug 2026 in “University of Michigan Drops First-Semester Grades To'Curb Mental Health Crisis'”

“For anyone wanting a faster overview, I used NotebookLM to create a brief video summary”

RecommendsComment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Claude Opus 5”

“I like the podcast features still for getting an overview or orientation on a new topic”

RecommendsComment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

“it was good for synthesizing multiple documents in a way chatgpt or google's ai overview couldn't”

RecommendsComment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

“notebook LM is still much much better at not hallucinating compared to claude and chatgpt”

RecommendsComment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

“I hate sitting through the patter of how "we're not political, just reporting the views of the sources."”

CriticizesComment from 17 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

“you had to give it URLs or docs, you couldn't just have it search for docs and then incorporate them into your research”

CriticizesComment from 16 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

“NotebookLM/Gemini Notebook sorta does this, but the two-person podcast format is kind of annoying and it can't pronounce math.”

MixedComment from 16 Jul 2026 in “NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook”

“it illustrates the obvious, easy to understand things in the brief, and misses (or oversimplifies) most of the hard technical parts”

CriticizesComment from 16 Jul 2026 in “Can LLMs Perform Deep Technical Comprehension of Computer Architecture Papers”

“NotebookLM is a killer product for e.g. collecting and summarizing new laws”

RecommendsComment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Grok 4.5”

“after 50 of them, I can predict what the host will "pushback" on and exactly when”

MixedComment from 21 Jun 2026 in “The 100k Whys of AI”

“I'd basically take the slides and throw them into NotebookLM and get way better lectures”

RecommendsComment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes”

“It not only gave me the fallacies in their reasoning, but also an excellent counter argument”

RecommendsComment from 30 May 2026 in “The Dead Economy Theory”

“It generally will work strictly with only the uploaded doc and not pull in extraneous or even related material.”

MixedComment from 11 May 2026 in “Ask HN: Why do people hate using AI so much?”

“NotebookLM's inline numbered references can now be automatically converted into proper academic citations”

MixedComment from 9 May 2026 in “Export NotebookLM Responses as Properly Cited Docx/PDF [video]”

“The damned podcast presented the material in a way that helped explained the topic more than my article did.”

RecommendsComment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you retain what you learn from podcasts?”

“when notebooklm came out with their pod cast feature I was in heaven”

RecommendsComment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you retain what you learn from podcasts?”

“Or give the video to notebooklm - you can also get the trasncript (unformatted) using this technique”

RecommendsComment from 10 Apr 2026 in “RAM Has a Design Flaw from 1966. I Bypassed It [video]”

“Throw the video into notebooklm - it gives transcripts of all youtube videos (AFAIK)”

RecommendsComment from 10 Apr 2026 in “RAM Has a Design Flaw from 1966. I Bypassed It [video]”

“I used it most key to learn about history. There isn't much damage if it got 1600s or 1700s detail wrong.”

RecommendsComment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”

“Otherwise you may very well be missing anything really surprising or novel.”

MixedComment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”

“The bantering of the podcast I found distracting and the breathless enthusiasm.”

CriticizesComment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”

“One minor thing that I find annoying is that the narrators switch roles in the middle of conversation.”

MixedComment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform”

“The NotebookLM project can be used for any future maintainers to ask questions about the project based on all of the artifacts.”

RecommendsComment from 16 Mar 2026 in “"How I write software with LLMs"”

“The pro tip is pasting such long ToS into NotebookLM and asking it to list e.g. top 5 surprising clauses”

RecommendsComment from 9 Mar 2026 in “US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use may imply consent [pdf]”

“the right tools are grounded Ai solutions like nouswise and notebooklm”

RecommendsComment from 3 Mar 2026 in “India's top court angry after junior judge cites fake AI-generated orders”

“I fed my core curated lessons into NotebookLM to generate supplemental podcasts, slides, and flashcards”

RecommendsComment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Swalpa – Spoken Kannada learning platform built with Antigravity”

“they have the full suite of tools I want from general LLM chat, to notebookLM, to antigravity”

RecommendsComment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Gemini 3.1 Pro”

“Which for the positions/roles involved does make some sense (drafting documents/research).”

MixedComment from 19 Feb 2026 in “How AI is affecting productivity and jobs in Europe”

“relies 100% on the sources you provide, such as PDFs, audio files, YouTube videos, Google Docs”

RecommendsComment from 7 Feb 2026 in “NotebookLM: The AI that only learns from you”

“The NotebookLM version gives citations with links to the original text to support all these assertions”

RecommendsComment from 14 Jan 2026 on Hacker News

“throw any conversation into notebooklm and deep thinking mode to go in depth”

RecommendsComment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Google Got Its Groove Back and Edged Ahead of OpenAI”

“NotebooksLM does come up with decent quizzes, but nothing super hard.”

MixedComment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Fighting Fire with Fire: Scalable Oral Exams”

“notebooklm is insular and doesnt have the research and imaging features of gemini”

CriticizesComment from 18 Dec 2025 in “Skills for organizations, partners, the ecosystem”

“LLMs handle the rest well: presenting info in different ways and paces, interacting with the learner like a tutor”

RecommendsComment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Coursera to combine with Udemy”

“I'm actually pretty astonished by it's audio overviews and the insights/summaries it's able to do”

RecommendsComment from 17 Dec 2025 in “AI's real superpower: consuming, not creating”

“heavily biased to only use the sources i added and frame every task around them”

CriticizesComment from 12 Dec 2025 in “GPT-5.2”

“astonished and delighted by NotebookLM, mostly because of the audio overviews”

RecommendsComment from 16 Nov 2025 in “Three kinds of AI products work”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.