In a cheerful season-of-thanks episode, The Real BS About AI turns a new page as hosts Alethea Inns and Bob Soulliere spotlight Google’s Notebook LM, calling it one of the easiest ways to stay organized in the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence (AI).

Available to UNLV students, faculty, and staff through Google Workspace, Notebook LM enables users to build an AI assistant powered entirely by their own trusted materials, such as PDFs, Google Docs, policy pages, and YouTube links. The tool summarizes, cites, and transforms these sources into clear, useful formats.

In the episode, Inns, associate instructional technology support specialist, demonstrated features that help users keep their academic and administrative work neatly spiral-bound, including:

• Cited responses drawn only from uploaded sources
• Audio overviews that turn readings into conversational mini-podcasts you can interrupt with questions
• Video overviews with customizable visuals and languages
• Mind maps that organize complex topics into clean, connected branches
• Flashcards and quizzes that help students highlight what they’ve learned

Inns described how consolidating more than 100 Panopto help files into a single notebook has streamlined her support work. When she doesn’t remember a workflow while assisting faculty, Notebook LM helps her quickly retrieve the exact steps from department documentation, enabling her to provide accurate answers more quickly.

Notebook LM isn’t just for students hitting the books. It’s equally handy for navigating travel policies, organizing project materials, or managing research, according to Soulliere, assistant vice president for digital services and solutions.

“Being able to have this information collected within something like Notebook LM allows me to go in there and say, ‘How do I book a flight?’ It pulls up: you need to use Southwest Biz, here’s the corporate code, here are your policies around booking flights,” he said.

The hosts wrapped the episode with a message fitting for the season: explore boldly, annotate often, and don’t be afraid to test what Notebook LM can do.

The Real BS About AI publishes new episodes every two weeks, blending humor, accessibility, and practical advice to make artificial intelligence approachable for the UNLV community. View the AI Technology webpage for past podcast episodes or more information about AI at UNLV. 

Content for this story was drawn directly from the podcast and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our communications team verifies all content for accuracy.