How to Use NotebookLM in 2026: Free Limits, Paid Plan Differences, and a Step-by-Step Guide

The core of using NotebookLM is simple: you upload your own material as sources, and every answer and summary it produces is grounded in those sources. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026, but it is the same standalone product, and a free account still gets 100 notebooks with up to 50 sources each. As of September 2026, Google's help center says it is available in more than 80 languages across more than 195 countries and territories, with Korean on the supported list. What follows covers the steps, the free and paid limits, and what changes for Korean-language users, drawn only from Google's official documentation.

What is NotebookLM? Its current name is Gemini Notebook

NotebookLM is Google's AI research tool that answers questions and builds summaries grounded in the documents and links you upload. Josh Woodward, VP of Google Labs, announced on the Google blog on July 16, 2026 that NotebookLM was being renamed Gemini Notebook, describing it as the same standalone product now doing more across the Google ecosystem. The same post put usage at more than 30 million individuals and more than 600,000 organizations.

Two things changed alongside the name. First, every notebook gets a secure cloud computer, so it can write and run code to analyze the data in your sources. At announcement this opened to Google AI Ultra users first, with Pro users to follow over the coming weeks. Second, notebooks can now be created inside the Gemini app and stay in sync with the standalone product. The old notebooklm.google address redirects to the new one, so existing bookmarks still work. Because far more people still search for "NotebookLM," this article treats both names as the same product.

How to use NotebookLM in 5 steps

Using NotebookLM requires only a Google account and a browser; there is nothing to install. Combining Google's help articles on creating a notebook and adding sources gives the following five steps.

1. Create a notebook: Go to notebook.google.com and select "Create new notebook." Personal and work or school accounts both work, subject to age requirements that vary by country.
2. Add sources: Upload sources in the pop-up. Supported types include PDF, Google Docs, Slides and Sheets, Word (docx), PowerPoint (pptx), text and Markdown, CSV, web URLs, public YouTube videos with captions, MP3 and WAV audio, images, and pasted text.
3. Find material (optional): Type a topic into the search box under Add sources in the left panel to pull material from the web or Google Drive. Choose between Fast Research and Deep Research, an agentic feature that browses up to hundreds of websites and writes a report.
4. Ask questions in chat: Enter questions or ask for summaries in the chat panel. Answers carry citations showing which part of which source they rely on.
5. Generate outputs in Studio: Pick an output such as an Audio Overview, mind map or quiz in the Studio panel. To get output in Korean or another language, change the output language in Settings at the top right.

Each source can hold up to 500,000 words or 200MB for uploaded files, with no page limit. Google Slides are read up to 100 slides and Google Sheets up to 100,000 tokens.

10 key NotebookLM features

The NotebookLM Studio panel is where outputs are made, and as of September 2026 it offers 10 output types. Google's help center lists them as Notes, Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, Mind Maps, Reports, Data Tables, Flashcards, Quizzes, Slide Decks and Infographics.

Audio Overviews, the most widely used, turn your sources into a podcast-style conversation in 4 formats. Deep Dive (the default) has two hosts unpack and connect topics; The Brief has a single speaker deliver the key takeaways in under two minutes; The Critique has two hosts give a constructive evaluation of material such as an essay or design doc; and The Debate stages a formal back-and-forth. Length can be set to Shorter, Default or Longer, and Longer carries an "English Only" label.

Google added study features on September 15, 2026. Short Video Overviews of about 60 seconds are available in more than 80 languages, and interactive learning overviews that bundle summaries, infographics, quizzes and flashcards under Reports are rolling out. Quizzes gained short-answer, multiple-select and fill-in-the-blank formats. Real-time voice conversation with notebooks in the mobile app supports nearly 100 languages and opened first to Google AI Ultra subscribers aged 18 and over.

NotebookLM free vs paid: the differences

The difference between free and paid NotebookLM is mostly in daily usage counts and source capacity, not in which features exist. Free accounts can use Audio and Video Overviews, reports, quizzes, flashcards and mind maps, but according to Google's help center table as of September 2026, sources per notebook are 50 on the free tier versus 300 on Pro, a 6x gap. Upgrading means subscribing to Google AI Plus, Pro or Ultra, or using a qualifying Google Workspace license.

Item	Free	AI Plus	AI Pro	AI Ultra
Notebooks	100	200	500	500
Sources per notebook	50	100	300	500-600
Daily chats	50	200	500	2,500-5,000
Daily Audio Overviews	3	6	20	100-200
Daily Video Overviews	3	6	20	100-200
Daily reports, quizzes, mind maps	10 each	20 each	100 each	500-1,000 each
Deep Research	10 per month	3 per day	20 per day	75-200 per day

Ultra limits are shown as ranges because they differ between the 20TB and 30TB storage tiers. Local-currency prices are shown by region on Google One's plan page, so check there before subscribing.

Does NotebookLM support Korean?

NotebookLM works in Korean for both questions and generated output, and Korean appears on Google's list of more than 80 supported languages. The default output language follows the preferred language in your Google Account, and changing the output language in Settings switches chat answers and Studio outputs to that language.

Three things do not carry over fully for Korean users. Interactive mode for Audio Overviews, where you break in and ask the hosts questions during playback, is available only in English. The audio recorder announced on September 15 also works only when English is the selected output language. And Google's help center states that outputs made with Veo, Omni or Nano Banana get a visible watermark automatically for residents of India, South Korea and Vietnam. So even though watermark removal is listed for Pro and above, Korea-based users are subject to this rule first. Anyone planning to drop Video Overviews or infographics straight into a presentation should account for that.

NotebookLM use cases for students and professionals

NotebookLM is strongest at helping you understand a body of material you already have. Unlike chatbots that search the open web, it narrows answers to the sources you uploaded, which is an advantage when working with lecture material or internal documents whose origin is clear. Grouped by task, the September 2026 feature set maps like this.

• Exam prep: Put lecture PDFs and notes into one notebook and generate quizzes and flashcards. The free tier allows 10 of each per day.
• Review on the commute: Generate an Audio Overview in your language and listen on the move. When you only need the gist, pick The Brief, which runs under two minutes.
• Report drafts: Gather web material with Deep Research, add it as sources, generate a report, and follow the citations back to the originals.
• Meeting and project handover: Load scattered meeting notes and planning docs, then look at the structure first through a mind map and data table. New team members asking questions against the same material spend less time getting briefed.

Is NotebookLM free enough, or do you need a paid plan?

The free NotebookLM tier is enough for an individual working one course or one project at a time. Fifty sources per notebook and 50 daily chats comfortably cover a semester's lecture material for one course or the documents for a single project. The bottleneck usually arrives first at 3 daily Audio and Video Overviews and 10 Deep Research runs per month. Someone who turns several documents into audio every day or repeats research often will feel the difference even at Plus, which raises Overviews to 6 a day and Deep Research to 3 a day.

The more important criterion is the scope of the evidence, not the limits. Google itself notes that NotebookLM may decline to answer when the information is not in your sources. That behavior is not a weakness; it is the reason to use the tool. The quality of what you put in is the quality of what you get back, so curating and organizing sources changes results more than upgrading does. Audio Overviews also carry a notice that they may contain inaccuracies or audio glitches, so any sentence you plan to quote in coursework or at work should be checked against the original by following the chat answer's citations.

Source: NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook (Google Blog) · Sharpen your study routine with new Gemini Notebook tools (Google Blog) · Upgrade Gemini Notebook (Google Help) · Add or discover new sources for your notebook (Google Help) · Create a notebook in Gemini Notebook (Google Help) · Generate Audio Overview in Gemini Notebook (Google Help) · Change output language in Gemini Notebook (Google Help) · Gemini Notebook Help (Google Help)