NotebookLM Is Now Gemini Notebook: What Changed and What Stayed

Gemini Notebook is NotebookLM with a new name. Google announced the rename on July 16, 2026, and says it is the same standalone research product: you add sources, chat with them and get answers with citations, and turn them into Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, reports and study material. Three things are new or newer. Each notebook gets a secure cloud computer that can write and run code over your sources, rolling out by plan. Your notebooks now also appear in the Gemini app, with changes synced both ways. And since September 2, 2026, usage is metered by compute rather than a simple count. Existing notebooks and shared links carried over, and nothing needed doing. This post covers the product as of September 30, 2026; for how it compares with Claude, see Claude Projects vs NotebookLM.

The rename: date, name and address

The announcement on Google’s blog, NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook↗ (opens in a new tab), is dated July 16, 2026. It says the product “remains a standalone product focused on being your premier research tool, but it will now do more across the Google ecosystem, including inside the Gemini app and Google Search.” The Gemini app side is live; the Search side was described as coming. Google puts its reach at more than 30 million people and over 600,000 organizations.

For administrators, the Workspace Updates post on the rename↗ (opens in a new tab) says no action is needed, that the new name and logo roll out over several weeks (an extended rollout, potentially longer than 15 days), that mobile users may need to update the app, and that automatic redirects keep existing shared notebooks and links working.

The address is where Google’s own pages disagree. The July 16 announcement links to notebooklm.google. The help center now says Gemini Notebook is at notebook.google, and on September 30, 2026, notebooklm.google redirected there. Either works for now; bookmark the one the help center gives. The help center articles now carry the Gemini Notebook name throughout.

What stayed the same

The core idea is unchanged: a notebook is a collection of sources for one project, and each notebook is independent, so it cannot read across your other notebooks. The workflow is the same three panels.

• Sources: PDFs, Google Docs, Slides and Sheets, Word, PowerPoint, text and Markdown files, web pages, public YouTube videos with captions, audio files, images, ePub files, eligible Play Books ebooks, and pasted text. Drive imports stay in sync with the original. Each source can hold up to 500,000 words or 200MB for an upload.
• Chat: answers grounded only in your sources, with direct quotes as citations you can click to check. Ask for something the sources cannot support and it may decline. Chat history is kept private to you.
• Studio: notes, Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, mind maps, reports, data tables, flashcards, quizzes, slide decks and infographics. Reports export to Google Docs and data tables to Sheets.

Source discovery is still built in: a quick search of the web or your Drive, or a Deep Research run that browses many sites and hands you a report plus the sources it found to import. Google’s help center says Deep Research in a notebook is for users over 18.

What changed

A secure cloud computer in each notebook

The rename came with an update that gives each notebook a secure cloud computer, so Gemini Notebook can write and run code over your sources for deeper data analysis. Google’s announcement says it was available first to Google AI Ultra subscribers and to Workspace business customers with AI Ultra or AI Expanded Access, with code execution rolling out to Pro users on the web in the following weeks. If you do not see it, your plan is the likely reason.

Notebooks inside the Gemini app

Google’s page on notebooks in Gemini Apps↗ (opens in a new tab) explains how the two products now share notebooks. Notebooks you create in Gemini Notebook show up in Gemini’s navigation, and renaming a notebook, adding sources or changing its custom instructions in one app syncs to the other. The differences matter in practice:

• Grounding: in Gemini Notebook, responses are grounded only in your sources. In Gemini, they are grounded in your sources but may also use web search and other tools.
• Studio: Gemini cannot make Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, infographics or slide decks. Those stay in Gemini Notebook.
• Sharing: shared notebooks, even ones you own, do not appear in Gemini, and a notebook that contains Gemini chats is private and cannot be shared.
• Chats as context: if you opt in, your Gemini chats with a notebook appear as read-only context in its sources panel, and collaborators can see them if you share it.
• Activity: turning off Keep Activity in Gemini does not delete anything in Gemini Notebook.

Video Overviews and interactive audio

Video Overviews now come in three formats: Cinematic, an immersive video for users 18 and over and in English only; Explainer, a structured overview; and Short, about 60 seconds. Explainer videos can take a visual style, from Whiteboard or Watercolor to one you describe, for users 18 and over, and Google warns a video can take more than 30 minutes to generate. Audio Overviews keep their four formats (Deep Dive, The Brief, The Critique and The Debate), and an interactive mode, in English, lets you join the conversation by voice and ask the hosts a question.

Usage limits, and where Google’s pages disagree

Google’s page on managing Gemini Notebook usage limits↗ (opens in a new tab) says that starting September 2, 2026, limits are compute-based. They weigh the complexity of your prompt, the models and features you use, the length of your chat and the feature itself. Quota refreshes every five hours until you reach a weekly limit, and the chat and Studio panels show how close you are. If you run out, you can wait, choose Generate later on the web for a Studio item, or upgrade. By plan, Google states the limits only relatively: standard without a plan, two times higher on AI Plus, four times on AI Pro, and 5x or 20x AI Pro on AI Ultra.

The work and school page has not caught up. It still lists fixed daily counts by edition, such as chats, Audio Overviews and reports per day, and the sources page still says up to 50 sources per notebook for free users. Treat the compute-based page as current, the per-notebook source cap as still in force, and the daily tables as out of date until Google reconciles them.

Gemini Notebook in Google Workspace

According to Google’s page on using Gemini Notebook with a work or school account↗ (opens in a new tab), it is now a core service for Workspace and Workspace for Education, like Gmail, Calendar and Docs. Business Starter, Standard and Plus, the Enterprise and Frontline editions, Nonprofits and most Education editions get it as a core service; Business Base, Essentials Starter, Workspace Individual and a few others get it as an additional service. AI Expanded Access and AI Ultra Access add higher levels. Admins turn access on or off, and higher limits come from the edition, not from an individual upgrade.

• Data: Google says your data is not used to train Gemini Notebook unless you give feedback. On editions with enterprise-grade protections, uploaded files, chats and outputs are not reviewed by people or used to improve generative AI models.
• Age: Workspace for Education users of any age can use it. Personal accounts must be above the age of consent, and some features are 18 and over.
• Public sharing: off for Workspace Enterprise and Education accounts. It is a consumer-account feature.

Sharing a notebook

The steps are in Google’s page on creating a notebook↗ (opens in a new tab). Add people by email as Viewer, who can read sources and notes, or Editor, who can add and remove sources and share further. A chat view link hides sources for a focused experience, but Google says it does not revoke a viewer’s underlying access. Personal accounts can share with up to 50 people but not with Google Groups. On consumer accounts a notebook can be made public to anyone signed in to Google, and an owner of a public notebook can share single outputs such as a slide deck or Audio Overview with anyone who has the link. Owners can allow or block copies, and a notebook shared with at least four others shows seven days of usage analytics.

One more disagreement: the same page explains how to create a private copy of a notebook, while the help center’s FAQ still says duplicating a notebook “isn’t supported yet.” The copy option described on the notebook page is the newer of the two.

What it still does not do

• It does not track work. A notebook holds sources, notes and outputs; nothing in it records who picked up a follow-up or whether it is done.
• It answers from your sources only, by design. That is the point for a literature review, and a limit when you want outside knowledge; the Gemini app gives you the looser version.
• Notebooks are islands. Each one is separate, and exported Docs and Sheets do not sync back or carry the notebook’s sharing.
• Limits move. Compute-based quotas mean a long video or a big report can use up a day’s headroom, and Google says limits may change.

From notebook to a list of work

Research ends in follow-ups: confirm this figure, ask legal about that clause, redo section three. Ask the notebook for them in a form you can paste.

List every open question and follow-up these sources raise.
One per line, starting with a verb, under 12 words each.
After each line, name the source it came from in parentheses.
Do not add anything the sources do not support.

On fenbs, paste that list into Add many and each line becomes a task, moving through To Do, Next Up, In Progress and Completed, with History recording who changed what. Each task keeps a note for the problem and a plan for how it will be done, so the citation from the notebook goes in the note. Google’s help center describes no way for Gemini Notebook itself to connect to a task tool; if you want an assistant to file and update the tasks, connect one over MCP, as Gemini for project management describes for Gemini CLI and the Gemini app. fenbs has no due dates or assignee field, so dates and owners go in the note.