NotebookLM Outperforms ChatGPT & Gemini for AI Research and Content Creation

I usually ignore the periodic Google Workspace emails, but this one seemed different. Intriguing.

The email was about NotebookLM and that NotebookLM Plus was coming out in February. As a Google Workspace user, NotebookLM Plus was included in my plan—no further action is required. 

"Notebook" made me think I was getting one of Google's rubbish Chromebook laptops. I almost deleted the email but decided to investigate.

NotebookLM: "Your Personalized AI Research Assistant"

Turns out NotebookLM has nothing to do with Chromebooks or hardware. It's Google's latest AI research assistant. And, it's awesome!

NotebookLM is an AI-powered research assistant that helps users deeply understand and organize information. You can upload up to 300 PDF documents or connect other sources, like websites, videos, and Google Docs. NotebookLM will summarize content, connect topics, and cite exact quotes for accuracy.

Key use cases:

• Simplifies learning with summaries, real-world examples, and concept explanations.
• Organizes thinking with presentation outlines and key insights.
• Sparks creativity by identifying trends and generating fresh ideas.

Google says NotebookLM prioritizes privacy and never uses personal data for training, but we all know that's bullshit. 

NotebookLM outperforms ChatGPT & Gemini for research

While Google sucks at privacy, and Gemini is the most useless AI product on the market, NotebookLM is a game-changing research tool. I've used ChatGPT and Gemini for similar tasks over the last year with varying results. 

The biggest problem with ChatGPT and Gemini is their propensity to *hallucinate—constantly!

*AI hallucinations occur when an artificial intelligence system generates false or nonsensical information. The system confidently generates false or nonsensical information not based on factual data or reality.

NotebookLM will summarize content or data with a citation, almost eliminating hallucinations. Clicking on a citation opens your source to the exact location cited. This highlighting helps you instantly fact-check answers within your sources, a process you must do manually with most other AI tools, including ChatGPT and Gemini.

Aside from improved accuracy, NotebookLM has several features to help with data analysis and research.

NotebookLM: Features Overview

One of my favorite NotebookLM features is the Notes section, with predefined actions for quickly synthesizing data:

• Study Guide: A condensed version of your source material with key concepts, questions, and answers to help you learn and retain information. 
• Briefing Doc: A concise summary of important information, findings, and insights from your documents. Useful for quickly understanding a topic or presenting key takeaways to others.
• FAQ: A list of frequently asked questions and their answers generated from your sources. Helpful for anticipating questions others might have or quickly generating answers to common queries.
• Timeline: A chronological organization of key events, dates, and figures in your sources. Helpful in understanding the historical context of information or visualizing a sequence of events.

NotebookLM: Audio Overview

Another cool feature is the Audio Overview. In a few minutes, NotebookLM generates a podcast-style summary of your sources with AI hosts—who, I must admit, are pretty engaging and convincing.

I think the best use case for Audio Overview is internal comms. You can share engaging podcasts of department outputs, news, latest research, or entire Slack channel summaries for team members.

Audio Overview is also useful for voiceovers in VSLs and other social media content.

NotebookLM: My Initial Thoughts & Results

One of the projects I'm working on requires researching and summarizing studies. If I had to do this manually, I wouldn't have considered the project, but ChatGPT makes the process effortless.

The problem so far has been the hallucinations and double-checking ChatGPT's work for accuracy. With NotebookLM, I've completely eliminated this issue.

I've also found NotebookLM invaluable for generating outlines and content for SEO articles. I connect my sources and explain my goals, and NotebookLM generates the content. 

It's a dry and clinical read that needs massaging to create an engaging article. However, the output is far more original and authentic than other AI-generated content because it relies on your sources to generate an article rather than training data.

NotebookLM for SEO-friendly content creation

For example, I recently created a massive pillar piece targeting the keyword "vanlife" for a project I'm working on called Vanlife Voices. 

I added peer-reviewed vanlife studies and ten transcripts from vanlifers I'd interviewed to NotebookLM's Sources. Combining research data and original transcript insights allowed me to generate a unique and engaging article citing credible sources for facts with real-life experiences and vanlifer quotes to back up or explain the data.

I tried to create the vanlife article in ChatGPT and Gemini, but I had a lot of errors. For example, every quote these tools claimed to produce from the transcripts was incorrect. ChatGPT would provide a quote based on the sentiment of what someone was saying rather than quoting verbatim.

Gemini was useless at everything, which is ironic since Google built NotebookLM on Gemini. It appears Gemini needs stricter controls and constraints to generate meaningful results!

I see tools like NotebookLM enhancing content significantly. It'll allow content creators to create long-form articles and short-form newsfeed posts using research and first-party data—most importantly, without hallucinating. The content is original and doesn't contain the usual tell-tale signs it was created using an AI tool. 

NotebookLM Marketing Use Cases

Here are some of the ways I think NotebookLM will assist with content and social media marketing:

Content creation & strategy:

• Repurpose existing content: Upload blog articles or video transcripts to generate different formats like social media posts, email newsletters, or VSL scripts.
• Generate fresh content ideas: Feed NotebookLM industry reports, competitor analyses, and audience research to brainstorm new content angles, topics, and formats.
• Create data-driven content: Upload market research, customer surveys, or website analytics to generate insightful reports, infographics, or presentations backed by data.
• Curate and personalize content: Upload articles, blog posts, or resources and have NotebookLM create personalized content recommendations for different audience segments.
• Create audio for articles: Use NotebookLM's audio overview feature to create podcast-style summaries of your articles, then use those audio files to create engaging video content with visuals and music.
• Generate comprehensive industry reports: Use market research data, competitor analyses, trend reports, and relevant news articles to generate insightful industry reports or lead magnets, complete with key findings, data visualizations, and future predictions.

Social media marketing:

• Craft engaging social media posts: Upload your blog posts, articles, or product descriptions and let NotebookLM generate short-form copy to align with web content.
• Analyze social media performance: Upload your social media analytics with associated content and have NotebookLM identify trends, patterns, and insights to optimize your social media strategy and recommend future content.
• Manage social media campaigns: Upload campaign briefs, target audience profiles, and competitor analyses to generate social media calendars, content schedules, and performance reports.
• Monitor social media conversations: Upload social media mentions, comments, and reviews to analyze sentiment, identify key themes, and inform your brand messaging and engagement strategies.

While you can do most of this with ChatGPT and Gemini, NotebookLM does it significantly better. I will still use ChatGPT for many tasks, but NotebookLM is now my preferred AI research and data analysis tool. It's more transparent, and I can catch mistakes or hallucinations much easier.