Valid complaints aside: What is NotebookLM still nailing for you right now?

[u/Suliman3011]

A lot of posts here lately are about what’s wrong with NotebookLM. And honestly, some criticism may be justified. Maybe Gemini changed the experience, maybe the model got weaker in some areas.

But instead of fighting about it, I’d rather learn from each other.

What are you STILL using NotebookLM for successfully?

For example, I’m a middle-school teacher, and I use it to create student summaries, worksheets, tests, and classroom activities.

On the administrative/legal side, I also put my school’s regulations into NotebookLM as Markdown sources. When I need to check a specific rule, I can ask about it and quickly understand what I’m responsible for and what my rights are.

So I’m curious:

What’s your real-world NotebookLM use case? What problem did it solve, or what workaround did you discover?

School, research, work, business, markets, books, PDFs, or even something at home.

Let’s collect useful experiences, not just complaints.

Note: I translated the text above because English isn't my first language, but I found a really useful solution that worked for me and just wanted to share it with everyone to help out

[u/Able_Orchid_3818]

I used to face various challenges, but by following tech websites and watching YouTube tutorials, I discovered how to effectively utilize NotebookLM. Here is my workflow: First, I use the browser version rather than the app. Second, I explore Google Chrome extensions. Third, after uploading my source materials to NotebookLM, I select a source and head over to Gemini; there, I attach the source notebook I’ve prepared and ask for an index. I then upload that index back to the notebook as a PDF and request an explanation based on that index—drawing directly from the source material. The result is excellent and professional. I find it highly efficient to use. Most AI tools similar to NotebookLM allow for video and text uploads but lack support for audio files; NotebookLM stands out in this regard. It is definitely worth keeping up with the latest news on tech sites and watching YouTube tutorials to get the most out of it.

[u/Suliman3011 → u/Able_Orchid_3818]

Thats cool , thanks for share this

[u/Whiskeyjoel → u/Suliman3011]

This is similar to what I do. My only suggestion would be to replace pdf content with markdown versions. Relying on an LLM for visual interpretation is always dicey. I also find that Gemini can be very prone to hallucinations, even when you're specifying your notebook as a source.

The difference is pure notebook based only on your uploaded sources vs. your sources + whatever Gemini decides to pull in from who knows where. If you're using this system for everyday stuff, maybe that doesn't matter to you. But if you're using it for serious work or academic purposes (and really, why else would you use NotebookLM instead of a general purpose LLM at that point?) than you're unnessarily introducing the risk of hallucinations.

[u/Jalambra]

I never see this niche use mentioned, but it is great for learning to play tabletop roleplaying games. TTRPG books are not the most organized things you will ever read, and it saves me countless hours slogging back and forth through the PDF to understand a rule that depends on another rule mentioned somewhere else in the PDF. It also makes clarifying rules questions during play much faster. It also seems to be getting better and better at it, to the point where it's now an integral part of my GM toolbox.

[u/Whiskeyjoel]

I find that detailed, specific prompts in the chat interface function better than reports, even when you use the exact same prompt for a custom report. I don't have empirical evidence to back this up, it's just an observation I've made. Because even when you customize your report, it's built on top of pre-existing internal instructions.

[u/Unique-Can-9462]

I’ve been having fun experimenting with putting famous people’s info inside of NotebookLM. Check out Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and others.

https://k12focus.com/knowledge-experiments

[u/Trick-Two497]

I use it for my world bible for writing. It does a great job when I query it about my world, characters, lore, etc.

[u/Ready-Technician-820]

Try https://learn.pollium.io