- Google Tester The NoteBooklm Function Audio Overviews In Search
- The feature offers short, AI-generated audio listings for certain queries.
- The feature uses gemini models to provide podcast style explanations with clickable links.
I’ve been a fan of the audio overview feature in Google’s notebooklm since I first experimented with the last year. Now it comes to Google search, currently only as a test in the laboratories, but it brings a more bite-sized version of the AI-generated “podcasts” that I like in notebooklm.
Once you have chosen through laboratories, you start to see a little quick on some search result pages that say, “Generate sound overview.” Press it, wait about 30 to 40 seconds and out comes a compact audio clip of approx. Five minutes, sometimes less, it explains what you looked up in the form of two AI-generated voices that have a discussion. Not too deep, but not one-phrase low. Think of a middle ground between “Wikipedia Rabbit Hole” and “I only read the headline.”
As you listen, the audio player remains anchored on your results page and shows clickable links to the sources from which AI deducted. You can continue to browse, utilize related articles or just listen and absorb. If you like what you hear, you can give it your thumbs up. If it is eerily wrong, the thumbs are too there.
Although one is similar to what notebooklm does with its audio listings, the search version has a big difference. Notebooklm uses only documents you upload, YouTube videos and sites you specifically link to. Google Search’s version draws from public web content. It can be good or bad, depending on what you look up. Something straightforward and scientific can be fine, but a discussion about the best movie can ever get another soundtrack every time you look. Here is an example I recorded a clip from.
AI -Podcast Searches
It is hardly perfect and although the voices are good, they are still AI voices. You may also notice that the parrot phrases ranging from someone’s Reddit post. But it can be listened to and as Google points out, hands -free, with the opportunity to adjust the speakers and links there to give more context. You can speed it up or slow it down, jump around or follow the links as you go. It’s AI-Redied Search, not a new audiobook.
Currently, not all searches will offer to create a sound overview. You also need to be in the US and sign up for laboratories right now. But I would expect it to have a general release soon. Then you can ask how lithium-ion batteries work or why Roman concrete is still standing and getting a nice mini-discussion from digital figures.
Think about it as how video listings and image carousels brought new dimensions to how we take information online. Audio summaries are another aspect of it, and a victory for auditory students or people with visual impairment, with Openai and confusion and a dozen AI search engines sipping the heels, Google needs what can stand out, and an AI podcast, as the answer to a Serach is definitely a way to be unique, at least.
