Google’s NotebookLM adds Mind Maps to its string of research tools to help you learn faster than ever

• Mind Maps are rolling out to NotebookLM
• The new feature works in both the paid-for and free versions
• NotebookLM is shaping up to be one of our favorite learning tools

Hot on the heels of its announcement that NotebookLM's Audio Overviews are now available in Gemini, Google has revealed that a new feature, Mind Maps, will now be available as an option in NotebookLM.

Mind maps are great at helping you understand the big picture of a subject in an easy-to-understand visual way. They consist of a series of nodes, usually representing ideas, with lines that represent connections between them.

The beauty of mind maps is that they show you the connections between ideas in a way that helps make those connections more obvious.

Another string to its bow

NotebookLM is Google’s AI research helper. You feed it articles, documents, even YouTube videos and it produces a notebook summarizing the main points of the subject and you can chat to it and ask questions, as you would a normal AI chatbot.

Its best feature is that you can also generate an Audio Overview in NotebookLM, which is an AI-generated podcast between two AI hosts that discusses the subject, so you can listen to it and absorb the key points while doing something else at the same time. The Audio Overview can sound so natural it’s hard to believe you’re not listening to two humans talking!

Now Mind Maps have been added as another string to NotebookLM’s bow for helping you absorb information. They work in either the standard free version of NotebookLM or the paid-for Plus version.

Better understanding

To generate a Mind Map you simply open one of your notebooks in NotebookLM, or create a new one, then click on the new Mind Map chip in the Chat window (the central panel).

Once you’re viewing your Mind Map (it appears in the Studio panel once it has been generated) you can zoom in or out, expand and collapse branches, and click on nodes to ask questions about specific topics.

NotebookLM is shaping up to be an essential tool for students who have a lot of information to digest, and don’t necessarily read very quickly. Using the power of AI you can get AI to do a lot of the leg work for you, then present you with the key bits of information, and Mind Maps is just another way for NotebookLM to help you on your path to better understanding.

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