Google NotebookLM gets conversation memory and other useful features

Google's NotebookLM is getting new features to improve the chat experience. For starters, the AI note-taking app now remembers what you said.

A graphical representation of NotebookLM

Google is rolling out a new set of features and changes for NotebookLM. Several of them are back-end improvements to improve the quality, performance, and contextual understanding of the AI-powered research and note-taking app, the company said.

One of those areas is the chat feature in NotebookLM; Google says it has made fundamental improvements to how it works. NotebookLM chat now supports a 1-million-token context window for Gemini across all plans, around 8x the previous limit.

Its conversation memory capacity is now 6x higher, leading to a 50% improvement in user satisfaction for responses that use many sources, according to the search giant.

A highlight of the new update is that the AI note-taking tool can now automatically save conversations, allowing you to close and reopen sessions without losing your conversation history. This feature will roll out over the coming week.

Another feature available to all users is the ability to customize the NotebookLM chat for specific goals, voice, or role. Click on the 'Configuration' button in the top-right corner of the chat interface, then select 'Custom.'

Here, you can describe how you want NotebookLM chat to behave while talking to you. You can ask it to treat you like a PhD student, pretend to be a role-playing game host, or analyze the source material from different perspectives.

If your research is focused on educational content, you can also pick the Learning Guide option from chat configurations. It's designed to help users think more critically about their topic rather than getting a quick summary or a direct answer.

These new features go along with the recent updates Google has pushed to NotebookLM. The AI note-taking app now supports LaTeX equation rendering across chat, flashcards, and quizzes. Google also expanded its Nano Banana image generation model to the NotebookLM app. Meanwhile, new updates to Audio Overviews have made the AI hosts more comprehensive, packed with new content formats.