NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Google’s decision to rebrand its NotebookLM product as “Gemini Notebook” is seen as part of a broader trend of aggressive AI branding and frequent renames across its product line, prompting renewed skepticism about long‑term stability and the risk of eventual shutdown. Commenters generally view NotebookLM as one of Google’s more useful AI offerings—especially for research workflows and low‑hallucination document synthesis—but note growing reliability issues and awkward UX around features like auto‑generated podcasts. Many contrast Google’s fragmented AI strategy and slower perceived progress with rivals such as Anthropic and OpenAI, questioning whether branding changes are masking deeper execution and organizational problems.

Branding, Renames, and Confusion

  • Many see “Gemini Notebook” as a more on‑brand name that clearly ties the product to Google’s Gemini ecosystem.
  • Others view the rename as classic Google behavior: endless rebranding, then feature creep, then abandonment. The product having already had multiple names (Tailwind → NotebookLM → Gemini Notebook) reinforces this worry.
  • Some predict increased user confusion since many “notebook” products already exist (including other Gemini “Notebooks”) and third‑party services with similar names.

Trust in Google and Fears of Shutdown/Enshittification

  • Several commenters express fatigue with Google’s history of killing or renaming products, citing the long line of messaging apps and killed products.
  • A common pattern described: rename → add “useless”/ad‑driven features → degradation → user exodus → shutdown.
  • A few say they’re close to abandoning remaining Google services if this continues.

NotebookLM/Gemini Notebook: Capabilities and UX

  • Many users find NotebookLM genuinely useful for research: handling large contexts, synthesizing multiple documents, and being more grounded in source quotes with fewer hallucinations than general chatbots.
  • Others report increased hallucinations recently and cite Reddit threads as evidence.
  • Strengths mentioned: structured research workflows, audio overviews of papers, and making long documents approachable.
  • Weaknesses:
    • Podcast format feels slow, over‑scripted, too “corporate,” and bad at pronouncing math.
    • Latency and friction (time to generate, disappearing podcasts, janky interrupt).
    • Limited ingestion (URLs/docs; code repos and arbitrary file types not well supported).

Comparisons to Other Tools

  • Alternatives suggested: ChatGPT Live for interactive walking/voice learning, Claude/Codex for coding, nouswise and Notebooker.ai for multi‑source agents, Microsoft Copilot’s notebook, Readwise, Paper2Audio, Jellypod, and Google Illuminate.
  • Several say they’ve switched to Claude or other tools for serious work, citing better quality, stability, and tooling (e.g., proper package repos, better CLIs).
  • Some argue Google’s Gemini models were briefly frontier‑level; others strongly disagree, describing loops, hangs, and heavy hallucinations.

Google’s AI Strategy and Organization

  • Commenters see Google repeating its fragmented chat‑app history with AI: too many overlapping tools (Gemini CLI → Antigravity CLI, various “notebooks”), weak coordination, and marketing‑driven launches.
  • Explanations offered: internal competition between teams, launch‑count incentives, highly distributed org structure, and leadership not providing coherent top‑down product direction.