NotebookLM can now search the web, and it’s a game changer for research

NotebookLM, Google’s AI-powered note-taking app, is one of the best AI tools available for students and researchers alike. While it’s impressive, it’s not without its flaws. I recently outlined four features I’d love for Google to add next, but they just introduced a feature I never even knew I needed. And while part of me worries that NotebookLM could start hallucinating information (which, for now, it doesn’t), it’s still a neat addition.

NotebookLM can now use Gemini to find sources for you

Since its launch, you’ve always had to manually populate a notebook with sources to use any of NotebookLM’s features, like Audio Overviews or even the recently-launched Mind Maps feature. You could add PDFs, Google Docs or Slides, website URLs, public YouTube video links, or paste text.

Today, Google announced a new Discover sources option through a blog post on The Keyword. With this feature, instead of spending time manually searching for sources, you can let NotebookLM search the web for you (powered by Gemini, of course) and do all the heavy lifting.

To use this new feature, simply open a new or existing notebook. Instead of adding sources as you normally would, you’ll now see a Discover sources button right next to the Add source button in the Sources panel.

Once you click it, a text box with the prompt “What are your sources?” will appear.

All you need to do is describe what you’re looking for. Like with any AI tool, the more specific you are, the better. After that, click the Submit button. NotebookLM will search through “hundreds of potential web sources in seconds,” analyze them, and shortlist the most relevant ones based on your topic.

It will then curate a list of up to 10 recommended sources, along with a summary explaining their relevance. You can then check the box next to each source you’d like to import into your notebook and click Import when you’re ready.

We tried it out by typing “XDA-developers” into the text box, and here’s what we got:

As shown in the screenshot above, the tool didn’t just pull links to the site, but also included a few links from Reddit, which I found pretty interesting. If you search “XDA-developers” on Google, you’ll notice that while a Reddit community called r/xdadevelopers appears on the first search page, the sources NotebookLM gathered also included specific posts from that Reddit community.

This suggests that NotebookLM isn’t just pulling general search results (like many AI tools do), but is curating a more focused and relevant set of sources based on your exact query.

You can use these sources as you would normally in NotebookLM, whether for generating Audio Overviews, Mind Maps, FAQs, Q&As, quick summaries, asking questions, and much more.

If you’re in the mood to learn something new, there’s also an I’m feeling curious button, which generates sources on a random topic. We tried it out, and it surprisingly pulled up several links all about ice hockey. Specifically, the rules surrounding misconduct penalties.

Honestly, I found this really interesting, since this isn’t something I’d typically expect from a random topic generator.

Google’s blog post mentions that this is the “first of a series” of NotebookLM features using Gemini’s capabilities to collect relevant sources. So, it’s safe to say I’m excited to see what else Google has up its sleeve. This feature is rolling out starting today for all NotebookLM users, with the rollout expected to take about a week.