NotebookLM is gone. Gemini Notebook took its place, and it does more than summarize. Drop your files in, ask one question that needs real work, and get back the analysis, the spreadsheet, the brief and the chart.
You have a decision to make and the answer is somewhere in 6 documents. Last quarter's numbers, 3 quotes, your own notes, a report someone sent. Reading them all and doing the math is an afternoon, so it has been sitting there for 2 weeks.
NotebookLM is gone. Gemini Notebook took its place, and the difference is that it does more than summarize. You drop the files in, it answers only from those files, and it can do real work now: run the numbers, build the spreadsheet, write the brief, draw the chart. One prompt, and every line points back to the page it came from.
This page has the one prompt, what to upload before you run it, what comes back, and the one rule about the web.
Sources come first. With nothing uploaded it has nothing to work from, and the quality of what comes back is the quality of what you put in. Open a new notebook and add these.
Anything you upload sits in your Google account, the same as your Drive. If you would not email a document to a contractor, do not put it in a notebook. Take the client names out of the numbers first if you need to.
Change the first bracket to your decision. Leave the last 2 lines exactly as they are.
Using only the sources in this notebook, help me decide [the decision, e.g. which of these 3 software plans costs less over a full year, including the fees in the fine print].
Do the math and show your working.
Then give me, as separate files:
1) a spreadsheet with the numbers and working formulas, so I can change an assumption and see it update
2) a 2 page brief that says what you would pick and why, in plain English
3) one chart that shows the difference between the options
4) a mind map of the factors that matter
5) a short audio overview I can play in the car
Point every claim back to the source and the page it came from. If the sources do not cover something, say so and leave it blank. Do not search the web.
While it works, open the thoughts panel and watch it reason, run the numbers and cite your files. Ten minutes there teaches you more about how these tools think than a month of headlines.
The reason people trusted the old NotebookLM was that it answered from your files only. Gemini Notebook keeps that by default. The change is that when your sources come up short, it offers to search the web and bring outside information into your notebook.
It always asks first, at least for now. Say no unless you mean it, because once you say yes, outside data is mixed in with yours and every answer after that is partly the internet. That is why the last line of the prompt says "do not search the web." If a gap appears, you find the document and add it. The answers stay yours.
The ones that have been sitting on most desks for a while. Each is a first line for the prompt above.
The software you pay for every month and have not questioned in a year.
Using only the sources in this notebook, help me decide whether to renew [the tool] at [price] or switch to [the alternative], over a full year, including the time it would take me to move.
What happens to your year if you charge more.
Using only the sources in this notebook, help me decide between charging [price A], [price B] and [price C] for [your main offer], using last year's client numbers. Show what happens to my income at each price if I lose 1 in 5 clients, and if I lose none.
The help you know you need and cannot price.
Using only the sources in this notebook, help me decide between hiring a part-time [role] at [pay] and contracting the same work at [rate], for the next 12 months, using my numbers from last year. Include what I stop doing myself in each case.