Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026. For anyone already using it, nothing broke: the app remains exactly the same, and existing notebooks are safe with no data migration needed. The rename follows a clear pattern: this is the third major AI product rebrand in Google's recent history, after Bard became Gemini and Duet AI became Gemini for Workspace, with Google consistently incubating products under experimental names before folding them under the Gemini brand once they hit mainstream adoption.
The scale of the product explains why Google made it official now. Gemini Notebook has 30 million users and is in use at more than 600,000 organizations, making it one of the more widely adopted AI productivity tools outside of ChatGPT. In the last three years, Google added capabilities like interactive podcast generation, curated notebooks, video overviews, support for more file types, and an enterprise plan.
The rename comes with a genuinely new capability. The previous version was a system that indexed the documents you uploaded and retrieved relevant passages to answer your questions: it could tell you what a spreadsheet said, but it could not compute on the spreadsheet. That has changed. The new code execution capability, embedded in every notebook as a secure cloud computer, allows the tool to write and run code against a user's own sources for deeper data analysis, pushing the tool beyond summarization toward more analyst-style functionality.
Google says it has also prepared more than 100 curated software skills, enabling everything from organizing inconsistently formatted data to performing calculations and turning results into charts or reports, all within a single conversation. New output formats include JSON and Microsoft PowerPoint files. For a manager who regularly uploads contracts, sales reports, or policy documents, this means the tool can now do the analytical work that previously required exporting to a spreadsheet.
The feature is live now for Google AI Ultra subscribers and Workspace business customers with AI Ultra or AI Expanded Access, with a rollout to all Pro-tier web users expected in the coming weeks.
The next step Google has announced is Search integration. The product remains a separate app, but notebooks will now sync across the Gemini app and, soon, into Google Search's AI mode, meaning you will be able to use your own research notes as context when running AI-assisted searches. That is a meaningful shift: instead of starting every search from scratch, your already-organized research would travel with you into the search interface.
The rebrand does introduce a navigational puzzle: the Gemini app has a Notebooks section, there is a standalone Gemini Notebook app, and Google Search's AI mode is getting notebook integration too, with three overlapping surfaces with similar names that could frustrate new users trying to figure out where their notes actually live.
For anyone not yet using the tool, the free tier is still available at gemini.google.com. The core function has always been simple: you upload your documents and ask questions, and the AI answers only from what you gave it, with a direct reference back to the original source for every claim. Gemini Notebook refuses to answer beyond what your sources say and shows the exact passage behind each claim, while ChatGPT and Claude answer from training data or attached files without the same per-sentence citation trail. That difference matters for any professional who needs to verify the answer before acting on it.