How to Use Google NotebookLM (Full Tutorial)

About this video

This tutorial shows how to use Google NotebookLM as an AI research assistant grounded in your own sources. Signed in with a Google account, you create a new notebook — a workspace for a project or topic — and name it, in the example ‘Galactic Marshmallow Explosion Launch’ for a Kevin Cookie Company product launch. Sources are added by drag-and-drop PDF, from Google Drive, as a website, and as a YouTube video, giving four sources, plus a web search for ‘dessert trends 2026’ whose results can be previewed, unchecked, and selectively imported. Clicking a source shows an AI summary and its full content, and the auto-tagging icon groups sources automatically. In the center chat panel you ask natural-language questions across all sources — for example to summarize the launch strategy or identify the biggest risks — and answers include citations that, when clicked, jump to and highlight the exact passage in the source. Useful answers can be saved as notes on the right, and you can add your own notes, such as customer feedback, and convert a note into a source. In the Studio panel, after selecting only the relevant sources, you can generate a mind map (the example artifact is called the Confectionery Landscape), an audio overview AI podcast with format, language, length and focus settings, and also video overviews, reports and flashcards. Notebooks can be shared from the top right with viewer or editor permissions, defaulting to restricted access.

Key takeaways

• A notebook is a project workspace; add PDFs, Google Drive files, websites and YouTube videos as sources
• Use web search inside NotebookLM to find extra sources, preview them, and import only the relevant ones
• Chat answers cite sources — clicking a citation jumps to the highlighted passage in that source
• Save chat answers as notes, add your own notes, and convert notes into sources
• Studio generates mind maps, audio overviews, video overviews, reports and flashcards from selected sources only

Episode details: published May 11, 2026 · 7:56 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Kevin Stratvert’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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