Have you heard of NotebookLM? It’s an AI-powered tool from Google that lets you upload a bunch of documents into a virtual notebook, and ask it questions. I use it a lot in my work. It’s super helpful for integrating information across multiple documents, PDFs, and slide decks.
Instead of sifting through different sources when I need some info, I dump all the documents into NotebookLM, and ask it questions. So I could ask a question like “What are the asset requirements for setting up a Performance Max campaign?” and NotebookLM will pull up the info for me. And since the response is based on my own data (and NotebookLM links to the exact source in each response), there’s a much lower risk of it hallucinating a wrong answer.
Here’s a secret: Sometimes, when a client asks me a really specific question about a product, I open NotebookLM and pull out the answer in real time. Then I’ll casually give the answer as if I’m really knowledgable about esoteric topics like Conversion Lift Studies.
It’s gotten me thinking about how AI can give you superpowers – but only if you give it the right source data.
AI Works Best With Your Own Data
Chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini are fine for general use cases, but sometimes the best answers come from your own sources. Think about the notes you captured from that one meeting, the health screening report you received 3 years ago, or that email you received from that unknown Singaporean blogger who used to write about personal finance but now can’t seem to find a writing focus. Information like this doesn’t exist in ChatGPT, but is often way more personalized and valuable to you.
In the past, search used to be the only way to retrieve this info.