How to Make a Podcast with Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

You drop a few research papers into a notebook, click one button, and minutes later two AI hosts are chatting about your sources like a real podcast. That’s Audio Overview, the feature that made Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) famous. However, there’s more to it than the default two-host Deep Dive. Here’s how to make a podcast from your notebook, how long it runs, how to download it, and how to pick a format, steer the hosts and switch languages.

Key Takeaways

• How to make one: open a notebook with sources, select Audio Overview in the Studio panel, pick a format and generate.
• How long it runs: Google publishes no fixed running time. You choose Shorter, Default or Longer (English only), and The Brief runs under two minutes. In one 2025 study, two-host episodes averaged 14.3 minutes.
• How to download it: on the web, select Download in the Audio Overview player. The mobile app saves episodes for offline listening inside the app, not as a file.
• Audio Overview turns your sources into an AI podcast in 4 formats: Deep Dive, The Brief, The Critique and The Debate (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026).
• It speaks 80+ languages, but the length control and interactive mode are English-only.
• Google’s plan table lists 3 a day free; compute-based limits apply since September 2, 2026.
• Check facts: in one study, only 56.8% of episode ratings found no hallucinations.

What is a Gemini Notebook podcast and how does it work?

Audio Overview is Google’s name for the podcast feature: a spoken discussion between AI hosts, built only from the sources in your notebook. It launched on September 11, 2024 as a “deep dive” between two hosts, and at first they spoke only English and couldn’t be interrupted (Google, 2024). Two years on, the feature has 4 formats, more than 80 languages and a mode that lets you join the talk. In fact, the hosts don’t just read a summary aloud. They connect ideas, ask each other questions and point out where sources disagree. Google says the overviews aim to be “an objective reflection of your source content, rather than subjective opinions from the AI hosts” (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). In other words, the episode can only be as good as the material behind it. Think of it as two smart friends who pre-read your PDFs and talk you through them on a commute.

For more ways to get the most out of the tool, see our Gemini Notebook tips and tricks.

How accurate is a Gemini Notebook podcast?

Often, but not always, so check anything you plan to repeat. In a 2026 study, radiologists rated Audio Overviews made from 22 research papers. Only 56.8% of the evaluations found an episode free of hallucinations, with 0.93 factual errors and 1.62 mispronunciations per episode on average (Lee et al., Korean Journal of Radiology, 2026). In contrast, a smaller 2025 study was kinder. Eight episodes made from plastic surgery textbook chapters averaged 14.3 minutes and showed “excellent accuracy with no extraneous insertion of information.” Their weakness was emphasis: the hosts sometimes under- or overplayed topics that the book stressed (Taritsa et al., 2025). Similarly, Google’s help center warns that voices and content “may contain inaccuracies or audio glitches.” So treat an episode as a fast first pass. For example, follow up in the notebook chat, which answers with citations you can open.

How do you make a podcast in Gemini Notebook step by step?

Open a notebook with sources, select Audio Overview in the Studio panel, choose your settings and wait a couple of minutes. You need edit access to the notebook, and the audio builds in the background, so you can keep working or start other outputs meanwhile (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). Notably, Audio Overview is included on the free Standard plan. Here are the steps, using the choices Google lists in the generation panel:

1. Open a notebook, or create one, and add your sources: PDFs, Google Docs, pasted text, web links or YouTube videos.
2. In the Studio panel, select Audio Overview, or customize it first.
3. Pick a format, a language and, in English, a length of Shorter, Default or Longer.
4. Type a prompt that names the topics or expertise level you want.
5. Let it generate, then select Load to play an older episode later.

Choosing your sources wisely

Source quality drives output quality, and the caps are generous. The free plan allows 50 sources per notebook, while Plus allows 100 and Pro allows 300 (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). That said, you don’t need to fill them. A focused notebook gives the hosts a clear story to tell. Pick sources that share one question, and drop the loosely related ones. In addition, good prompts matter as much as good sources, so see the best Gemini Notebook prompts for research before you generate. Then the slow part is gathering those sources from chats, articles and videos.

What are the four Gemini Notebook podcast formats?

Gemini Notebook offers 4 Audio Overview formats, and the right one depends on how much time you have. Deep Dive, the default, is a lively conversation where two hosts unpack and connect your topics. The Brief is the opposite: a single speaker delivers the key takeaways in under two minutes. The Critique has two hosts give a constructive evaluation of material like an essay or design doc. The Debate stages a formal back-and-forth between two hosts on your topic (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). Google announced Brief, Critique and Debate on September 8, 2025, describing Critique as two hosts offering “constructive feedback on an essay or design document” (Google, 2025). As a result, the feature now covers more than study recaps. For instance, a writer can feed in a draft and hear the weak arguments before a human reviewer does.

Format	Hosts	Best for
Deep Dive	Two	Understanding a topic in depth.
The Brief	One	A refresher in under two minutes.
The Critique	Two	Feedback on your own writing.
The Debate	Two	Hearing more than one side.

How long is an Audio Overview, and can you make it longer?

Google doesn’t publish a running time for an Audio Overview, but you can set the length and write a prompt before you generate. The length options are Shorter, Default and Longer, but Google marks the control “English Only,” and the prompt box takes instructions “to focus on specific topics or adjust the expertise level” (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). That said, length isn’t only a setting. The Brief is built to run under two minutes, so pick Deep Dive when you want a long episode. Likewise, a narrow prompt helps, since the hosts spend their time where you point them. Want the audience treated as beginners? Say so. Want the whole episode on chapter three? Say that instead.

Which podcast prompts work best?

Prompts that name the audience and the scope in one sentence give the hosts the clearest brief. Conversely, vague prompts tend to produce vague episodes. Here are a few patterns to adapt:

• For a seminar: Focus only on the methods and results, and assume the listener is a graduate student.
• For a beginner: Explain this as if teaching a curious 12-year-old, and define every term.
• For a deadline: Skip the small talk and spend most of the time on the data in chapter three.
• For a debate: Compare what the two newest sources say, and flag where they disagree.

If you want prompt patterns for coursework and revision, our guide on how to study with Gemini Notebook goes deeper.

Can you make a Gemini Notebook podcast in other languages?

Yes. Audio Overviews generate in 80+ languages, and Gemini Notebook uses the preferred language from your Google Account as the default (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). From our research into Google’s help pages while fact-checking this post in October 2026, the Audio Overview language list has 80 entries, from Afrikaans to Vietnamese, including regional versions such as Portuguese (Brazil) and Portuguese (Portugal). To switch, choose a language when you customize the overview, and the hosts will speak it even if your sources are mixed. Importantly, the quality caught up too. On August 25, 2025, Google moved Audio Overviews in over 80 languages “from short-form to full-length,” with “the same depth, structure, and nuance” as English (Google, 2025). Two limits remain, however: the length control and interactive mode both work only in English.

How does interactive mode work?

Interactive mode is a way to join the conversation: you tap Join, ask the hosts a question by voice, and they answer from your sources before picking up where they left off. Google began rolling it out on December 13, 2024 as “an experimental feature” that “only works on new Audio Overviews” (Google, 2024). Today the help center lists the steps: create a new Audio Overview, select Interactive mode, select Join while you listen, and ask when the hosts call on you. It’s “currently available only in English,” your voice and transcribed questions “won’t be stored or shared,” and people who open a shared link can’t interact with your copy (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). Meanwhile, the mobile app labels it Beta. Expect a short delay after you speak, and the odd glitch, such as a random speaker switch.

It feels less like a podcast and more like office hours. As a result, a lean first episode is often enough, because you can dig deeper live.

How do you download and export your Gemini Notebook podcast?

Select Download in the Audio Overview player, then share the file. Google lists 3 ways to share: a link, the whole notebook or the downloaded audio (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). A link works only if the notebook is shared with that person or open to anyone with the link, and public sharing is switched off for Workspace Enterprise and Education accounts. Notebooks built on a Play Books ebook may not allow downloads, depending on the publisher. On a phone, the app keeps Audio Overviews for offline playback and plays them in the background while you multitask (Google, 2025). However, its help page says app downloads stay inside the app rather than saving as a file to your device. So one episode is easy. The friction starts around episode ten. Specifically, every download is a loose audio file, there’s no feed to subscribe to, and nothing gathers episodes from different notebooks into one show.

How does Kortex help you save and export podcasts?

Kortex is a free Chrome extension that works inside Gemini Notebook rather than replacing it. We built its private podcast feed for exactly that gap. With Kortex Pro, your Audio Overviews become episodes in a private RSS feed that Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts or Overcast can follow, with 1,000 audio minutes included. Additionally, its Workspace can start an Audio Overview from any notebook, and your steering prompts can live in a saved prompt library so every episode sounds consistent. Our Kortex automation workflows guide shows how to chain these steps, and getting started with Kortex covers setup in minutes.

Prefer to work from your AI assistant? Kortex MCP is a private beta for invited Kortex Pro members, and you can join the waitlist for an invite. It lets Claude or ChatGPT make an Audio Overview and add it to your podcast from chat. Alternatively, it can run a scheduled daily briefing that ends in a fresh episode. When we analyzed 776 Kortex MCP waitlist answers from September and October 2026, we found 91 people asking to make audio, slides or quizzes without leaving their chat. One wrote that they want to “generate template-based audio summaries, video summaries, written summaries, infographics.”

Is the podcast feature free, and what are the limits?

Yes, Audio Overview is free, but heavy use runs into limits. Google’s plan table lists 3 Audio Overviews a day on the free Standard plan, 6 on Plus, 20 on Pro and 100 or 200 on the two Ultra plans (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). Since September 2, 2026, however, Google has used compute-based limits that refresh every 5 hours until you reach a weekly cap. Plus gets two times the standard limits, Pro four times, and Ultra 5x or 20x Pro (Gemini Notebook Help, 2026). The two pages disagree; therefore, follow the newer one. A bar at the bottom of each Studio generation now shows its expected AI usage cost. For example, if you make a podcast or two a day to study or summarize reports, free works fine. Our guide to Gemini Notebook usage limits explains the meter in detail.

Plan	Audio a day (old table)	Limit since September 2, 2026
Free (Standard)	3	Standard limits.
Plus	6	Two times standard.
Pro	20	Four times standard.
Ultra	100 or 200	5x or 20x Pro.

Sources: plan table and usage limits page, Gemini Notebook Help (2026).

Whichever plan you pick, the real test of a podcast habit is whether you can find last week’s episode. Start with a focused notebook, pick the format that fits your goal, and steer the hosts with a clear prompt.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Gemini Notebook podcast feature free?

Yes. Audio Overview is free on the Standard plan. Google’s plan table lists 3 generations a day, 6 on Plus and 20 on Pro. Since September 2, 2026, compute-based limits that refresh every 5 hours until a weekly cap apply instead, per Gemini Notebook Help (2026).

How long can a Gemini Notebook Audio Overview be?

Google doesn’t publish a running time. You can choose Shorter, Default or Longer, though the length control is English-only, and The Brief runs under two minutes with one host. In a 2025 study, eight two-host episodes made from textbook chapters averaged 14.3 minutes.

Can I make a Gemini Notebook podcast in another language?

Yes. Audio Overviews generate in 80+ languages. Choose a language when you customize the overview, and even mixed-language notebooks produce audio in the language you pick, according to Gemini Notebook Help (2026).

What is interactive mode in Gemini Notebook?

Interactive mode lets you tap Join and ask the AI hosts questions by voice while you listen. It began rolling out on December 13, 2024, works only on newly generated Audio Overviews and is currently available only in English, per Gemini Notebook Help (2026).

Can I download a Gemini Notebook podcast?

Yes. On the web, select Download in the Audio Overview player, per Gemini Notebook Help (2026). The mobile app downloads Audio Overviews for offline playback inside the app. To hear them in Spotify or Apple Podcasts, Kortex Pro adds them to a private podcast feed.

What are the four Gemini Notebook podcast formats?

Gemini Notebook offers Deep Dive (two hosts in conversation), The Brief (one host, key takeaways in under two minutes), The Critique (two hosts giving constructive feedback) and The Debate (two hosts in a formal back-and-forth), per Gemini Notebook Help (2026).

How do I make a Gemini Notebook podcast longer?

Choose Longer in the length setting before you generate. The length control works only in English, and The Brief runs under two minutes with a single host, so pick Deep Dive for a long episode. A custom prompt can also point the hosts at the topics you want covered.

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Editorial note: fact-checked against the official help pages and docs linked above on October 2, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Contact us and we will fix it, or read more about Kortex.