Google Expands NotebookLM Plus to Individual Users

Recently, Google has expanded its AI-based note-taking and research assistant tool, NotebookLM Plus, to individual users who subscribe to the Google One AI Premium plan. Previously, the paid version of this tool was launched nearly two months ago on Google Cloud and Google Workspace for enterprise users.

NotebookLM Plus was first announced in December of last year and had undergone a pilot phase. Compared to the free version, this edition offers higher usage limits and advanced features, such as increasing the number of uses to five times that of the free version, supporting up to 500 notebooks with each notebook allowing up to 300 sources, as well as enabling up to 500 chat queries and 20 audio generations per day.

Now, individuals subscribing to the Google One AI Premium plan at $20 per month can access all these features. Additionally, Google is offering a 50% discount to students aged 18 and above in the U.S., reducing the cost to $9.99 per month.

The product and domain lead at Google Labs stated that the company has always aimed to bring NotebookLM Plus to both businesses and consumers, receiving significant interest from consumers, particularly students, right from the start.

Since its inception in 2023, NotebookLM gained considerable attention after launching the Audio Overviews feature in September of last year. This feature allows users to generate podcast-like audio conversations based on uploaded content, an innovation later emulated by companies like ElevenLabs and Meta. Meanwhile, Google continues to maintain its service's competitiveness through regular updates, including adding capabilities for guided AI-generated audio conversations.

It was revealed that Google plans to enhance the Audio Overviews function of NotebookLM to support languages other than English. The priority of language selection and how to ensure the translated content remains natural and fluent are currently under consideration.

Details about the Gemini AI model used by NotebookLM have not been disclosed, but it is confirmed that the underlying model used in the Plus version is the same as that for non-paying users. Google Labs is experimenting with different variants of Gemini and consistently employs the latest and most suitable Gemini model for specific tasks.

In addition, Google is developing a dedicated application to bring NotebookLM to mobile devices, though the exact timeline has yet to be announced. The app aims to provide functionality similar to the desktop experience while being tailored to common use cases on mobile devices.

At the same time, Google is exploring ways to utilize emerging inference models and incorporate thinking and reasoning functions into NotebookLM.

Although NotebookLM Plus has now been extended to individual users subscribing to the Google One AI Premium plan, which also includes access to Gemini Advanced, Gemini integration in Gmail and Docs, and 2TB of cloud storage, Google has stated that it will continue to support non-paying users.

Regarding the user base and team size of NotebookLM, Google has not disclosed specific numbers but noted that they have grown over time. However, data from market intelligence provider Similarweb shows that the AI assistant tool received 28.18 million visits in the past three months, with nearly 9 million visits in January alone.