Google’s research tool, NotebookLM, is enhancing how users conduct and organize research by introducing a powerful new feature — Deep Research — alongside expanded support for various file types. These upgrades aim to transform the way researchers, students, and professionals gather insights and manage diverse source materials seamlessly within their workflow.

Deep Research: Your AI-Powered Research Assistant

NotebookLM’s newly launched Deep Research functions as a sophisticated AI researcher designed to automate and simplify complex online research tasks. Instead of manually sifting through numerous articles, papers, and websites, users can now delegate this process to an AI that crafts a detailed report tailored to their specific questions. The Deep Research agent creates a research plan, browses hundreds of web sources on behalf of the user, and refines its search dynamically to produce an organized, insightful, and source-backed report within minutes.

What sets this apart is the workflow integration: the generated report and its underlying sources are directly importable into the user’s notebook. Users can also continue to add new sources as Deep Research operates in the background, enabling the assembly of a robust knowledge base on any topic without interrupting progress. NotebookLM further enriches this experience by offering features like audio and video overviews of the research content, supporting deeper understanding and alternative content interaction styles.

For quick info gathering, NotebookLM provides two research options:

• Fast Research: A rapid scan for information to quickly review and import sources.

• Deep Research: A comprehensive, in-depth analysis for a full research briefing, operating simultaneously in the background.​

Expanded Support for Everyday File Types

To accommodate the diverse formats researchers use, NotebookLM now supports an extended range of file types for source integration, making it easier to input and analyze data without cumbersome conversions or downloads. Key enhancements include:

• Google Sheets: Users can upload spreadsheets to extract key statistics, generate summaries, or query structured data directly.

• Google Drive Files as URLs: Instead of downloading files, users can simply paste Google Drive links (including multiple links separated by commas), similar to adding website or YouTube URLs.

• Images: Upload photos of handwritten notes, brochures, or other physical documents to be included as research sources.

• PDFs from Google Drive: Directly add research papers, reports, or ebooks stored in Drive, skipping extra steps.

• Microsoft Word (.docx) Documents: Analyze documents such as notes and drafts without manual file conversion.

These additions bring greater convenience and flexibility, helping users keep all relevant material at their fingertips for seamless analysis and synthesis within NotebookLM. The new file type support is currently rolling out to all users, with image uploads becoming available over the next few weeks.​

Enhancing Research Productivity

Not only does NotebookLM streamline source collection and management, but it also helps with note-taking, organizing, and creating study aids. By linking notes directly to specific sources and generating synthesized guides or briefing documents, NotebookLM enables users to focus more on understanding and applying information rather than getting bogged down with manual organization.

This makes NotebookLM a versatile tool suitable for a wide range of users — from academics conducting literature reviews, professionals analyzing technical data, to anyone looking to build a rich, organized knowledge base powered by AI-assisted workflows.​

With these upgrades, Chromebook users and others leveraging Google’s ecosystem can expect a more integrated, productive, and intuitive research assistant to tackle information-heavy projects from start to finish.