The idea of AI podcasts built by the documents you have lying around still feels like a trick of some kind, but Google’s notebooklm has shown me repeatedly that it can make informative, if not always lively, sound episodes about the subject I like.
The concept is simple: texts and prints become conversations between AI signs. They may randomly discuss your research and break it down in an engaging, digestible way. You can even jump in, ask questions and guide the discussion if you want.
But setting up notebooklm to give the best episode is not necessarily intuitive. So if you are a great sound teacher or just have many long car trips that come up, here are some tips to make the best fake podcasts possible.
Collect all your sources first
Before diving into a project, one of the best things you can do is assemble all your materials in one place. We all like to believe that we will remember which tab we left open for later, but we will not. The beautiful thing about notebooklm is that it works best with as much context as possible, so uploading everything that is relevant in a single notebook helps find connections, identify patterns and deliver meaningful insights.
For my garden work plans, it was like having two expert gardeners to discuss my exact research – except that I didn’t have to chase them down at a nursery. Instead of clicking through several articles, I got a clear, organized degradation of what I needed to know, which made it easier to preserve and act.
Ask follow -ups
Notebooklms podcasts are also not just passive. You can transform them into an interactive call show. Each time the AI podcast brings something interesting or unclear, you can take advantage of the ability to ask follow-up questions. This will help you refine the information and tailor them to your needs.
For my garden plans, the fertilizer discussion confused me a little, but I jumped in and asked what to use for the kind of vegetables I would grow. Then the AI hosts immediately began to answer my question before returning to the wider topic.
Tailored episodes
NoteBooklms Podcast feature is not one-size-pass-all. You can tailor it based on what is most important to you. Since I wanted a low maintenance garden, I adjusted my notebooklm session to focus on drought-resistant plants and natural pest control.
AI picked up this and emphasized strategies such as mulching and use of ring flowers to deter insects. If you have another target that may have maximizing vegetable yields or growing flowers for aesthetic appeal, you can make brand new episodes covering these elements alone.
‘Hire’ the right voices
I quickly realized that the AI-Generated Podcast sounds even better when you fine-tune the voice settings to match your preferences. Notebooklm offers different stimulations and tones, and adjusting them can make a huge difference in how engaging and digestible the content feels.
For example, I found that setting the voices to a slightly slower pace helped me absorb the information better, especially when dealing with detailed gardening instructions. You can also divide long episodes into smaller chapters. You can hear a good overview example from my gardening -podcast experiments below.
