Google's NotebookLM Can Help You Dive Deeper Into YouTube Videos

The Verge's Emma Roth reports: NotebookLM, Google's AI note-taking app, can now summarize and help you dig deeper into YouTube videos. The new capability works by analyzing the text in a YouTube video's transcript, including autogenerated ones. Once you add a YouTube link to NotebookLM, it will use AI to provide a brief summary of key topics discussed in the transcript. You can then click on these topics to get more detailed information as well as ask questions. (If you're struggling to come up with something to ask, NotebookLM will suggest some questions.)

After clicking on some of the topics, I found that NotebookLM backs up the information provided in its chat window with a citation that links you directly to the point in the transcript where it's mentioned. You can also create an Audio Overview based on the content, which is a podcast-style discussion hosted by AI. I found that the feature worked on most of the videos I tried, except for ones published within the past two days or so. [...] In addition to adding support for YouTube videos, Google announced that NotebookLM now supports audio recordings as well, allowing you to search transcribed conversations for certain information and create study guides.

People watch videos on YouTube?

[quonset]

YT has become essentially unwatchable, even with an ad blocker. It's become what cable television became, a few minutes of content surrounded by ads.

Re:

[Tablizer]

The trick seems to be to rotate ad blocker brands to stay ahead of Google's detectors.

Re:

[gweihir]

I just use what comes preconfigured with Vivaldi. Sometimes I see ads for a day or two until they fix it. But there is hardly any worthwhile content left on YouTube anyways.

Can I use this in boring meetings?

[Tablizer]

...I could then take a nap and just read the summary after.

(For remote meetings I'd just post an avatar of myself, at work I'd use those new fake-eye glasses. Hopefully the bot zaps me if I start snoring.)

Podcast

[EvilSS]

NotebookLM can also turn a document into a 10 minute or so 2 person podcast. The content is somewhat shallow valid for the subject of the document. I fed it a old Citrix VDI handbook and it even made a VDI pun. A valid one. Pretty sure it was voice trained on every small market radio morning show ever. Very weird.