Google on Tuesday announced Short Video Overviews for NotebookLM, its AI-powered research assistant and knowledge base builder. The feature, as the name suggests, allows users to generate concise videos leveraging AI. The Mountain View-based tech giant says it can summarise uploaded sources in a minute using narrative explanations and educational animations. The feature builds upon Google’s steady transformation of NotebookLM from a simple AI-powered research assistant into a more versatile learning tool in recent months.
NotebookLM’s Can Now Turn Documents Into One-Minute AI Videos
According to the search giant, the new Short Video Overviews feature caters to users who want to quickly understand the key ideas from their uploaded sources without watching a longer explainer. Like the traditional Visual Overviews, the feature leverages Google’s AI video generation capabilities to automatically convert uploaded documents into narrated explainer videos.
The new video format in NotebookLM can generate AI-powered videos that are about 60 seconds in duration. The company says this type of content is suitable for those who are quickly revising notes, research material, presentations, or lengthy documents.
Short Video Overviews are powered by the Nano Banana 2 Lite model, which was introduced earlier this year. It is Google’s image generation and editing model that is said to generate short videos while retaining the visual quality of Cinematic Video Overviews.
When using the feature, users can select Short as the output format within NotebookLM before they select the sources they want the AI to summarise. It also offers the option to customise the video’s focus by either selecting one of the suggested topics or by entering a custom prompt, before the overview is generated.
Based on the interface preview shared by Google, users will have the option of choosing between Short, Explainer, and Cinematic formats. Further, they can also select individual sources and define the video’s primary topic before generation.
Short Video Overviews will begin rolling out over the coming weeks to English-speaking users aged 18 years and above. As per the company, the feature will be available to both consumer and Google Workspace users across the web, Android, and iOS versions of NotebookLM.
