Chromebooks will soon have Google’s powerful NotebookLM installed by default

Google has released a number of features powered by its Gemini AI model, but perhaps one of its most widely praised Gemini-powered products is NotebookLM. NotebookLM is a powerful tool that uses AI to summarize, analyze, and answer questions about whatever documents, articles, videos, or audio content you throw at it. It’s incredibly useful for students, researchers, or anyone who needs to analyze large volumes of information. In order to bring this incredibly useful tool to more people, Google will soon preinstall NotebookLM on Chromebooks.

To use NotebookLM, you simply have to navigate to notebooklm.google.com in your web browser. That makes it quite accessible since everyone uses a web browser, but the problem is that many people who might benefit from the service don’t know it even exists. That’s why Google wants to put NotebookLM in the app drawer on Chromebooks, as it’ll get some users who haven’t heard of it before to check it out.

To do this, Google is adding NotebookLM to the list of preinstalled web apps in Chrome OS, the operating system that powers Chromebooks. Assuming Google implements this change, we’ll soon see Chromebooks with the NotebookLM web app preinstalled. It’s unclear if this will apply to existing devices or only new ones, though.

If you haven’t tried NotebookLM before, I highly recommend you give it a shot. It’s easy to get started and just takes one “aha” moment to really stick. My colleague Andy Walker found NotebookLM to be the perfect tool for keeping up with his vehicle maintenance needs. Similarly, Calvin Wankhede found its podcast-like Audio Overview feature to be an incredibly engaging way to absorb new information.

I’m surprised that Google hasn’t built a dedicated NotebookLM app already, but perhaps the service is evolving too rapidly for a dedicated app to be developed. Fortunately, there’s no need to wait for Google to build an app for NotebookLM, as you can easily install its web app right now on your PC. Here’s how to install the web app:

How to install the NotebookLM web app on your PC

1. Open Google Chrome. If you have multiple Chrome profiles, make sure you open the one signed into the Google account that you want to use for NotebookLM.
2. Go to https://notebooklm.google/.
3. In the address bar, click on the install icon to the left of the bookmark button.
4. You should see a popup window that asks you to install NotebookLM as an app.
5. Click Install. You should see NotebookLM open up in a separate window.
6. You can now pin the NotebookLM web app to the taskbar or add it to your desktop home screen for easier access.

These steps should work on most desktop platforms with Google Chrome. Other web browsers that support progressive web apps should also support installing NotebookLM, though the exact steps will differ. Lastly, it’s also possible to install the NotebookLM web app on Android devices by tapping “add to home screen” in the context menu of Chrome while you’re on the website.

Now that you’ve added a quick shortcut to NotebookLM, we’d like to know what you like most about it. Let us know in the comments below!