An AI notebook is a collection of related documents, such as financial reports, compliance policies, or project materials, that an AI assistant can use to generate responses. Unlike general AI chat, which may draw on internet search or broad model training, notebook responses are grounded only in the documents provided. This makes notebooks especially valuable when organisations want answers based strictly on their own internal data.
The approach behind this is known as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG): the AI retrieves relevant content from the notebook and uses it to shape its response. By doing so, it ensures accuracy, relevance, and alignment with the organisation’s knowledge base.
Notebooks can include Word, PDF, and other file types, as well as links. They often offer extra features—such as automatically creating study guides, FAQs, or even podcasts from the uploaded material.
Examples of notebook capability
This is the best notebook tool by far (as of November 2025). It also include features suach as audio and video overviews, mindmaps, quizzes and flashcards. It also has a critique mode and debate mode, useful if you are preparing your proposal or conculsions and want NotebookLM to play “devil’s advocate” and find weaknesses in arguments.