From PDF to Podcast, with the new Google NotebookLM

NotebookLM from Google is an experimental Web app that allows you to upload documents (such as PDF files) and have Google Gemini summarise them for you, create FAQs and also allow you to chat with the documents. It works really well, and has a very well considered interface.

A new feature released two days ago is the ability to turn the uploaded PDF into a ‘podcast’ interview, with two AI hosts describing the document. The compelling thing is the realism of the AI host voices, and their conversation with one another. It really is quite remarkable. And also useful. Too busy to read the full 68 page Australian Government Voluntary AI Safety Standards?

Create an audio overview in NotebookLM, then download the audio to your phone and listen to it on your run!

Here is the full 7 minute audio overview;

And this is a short summary (34 seconds) set to video. The images were made in Midjourney, and animated with Runway ML.

We spend a lot of time talking to clients, and building custom applications that leverage the smarts of Google Gemini and ChatGPT to leverage existing knowledge-bases, it’s great to see Google innovating in exactly this space.