Google Cloud: NotebookLM gets Plus version – new Agentspace tool
The research AI NotebookLM, known for its podcast function, is getting a paid version. Companies will also receive the new Agentspace tool.
Use of Notebook LM.
(Image: Google)
Google is expanding the functional scope of its AI notebook NotebookLM, which allows researchers to record large amounts of data and ask questions using a chatbot. In addition to the free version, which only requires a Google account, the service will also have a Plus version called NotebookLM Plus. This is marketed by Google's cloud subsidiary and is part of Google Workspace and Google Workspace for Education. It is intended to offer significantly more options for power users, even though NotebookLM is already quite powerful in the free version. Google has also introduced a new tool for companies that is designed to give them access to AI agents and AI-supported searches. It is called Agentspace and is initially available in "Early Access" on request.
What NotebookLM Plus can do better
NotebookLM Plus offers a handful of new features that will not be available to normal users. For example, five times as many audio overviews, the popular (and amazingly high-quality) overview podcasts, can be created. The number of notebooks, as Google calls individual research projects, queries and sources per notebook will also increase fivefold. Finally, you can influence the style and length of the answers to a greater extent and create shared notebooks for your team, including analysis data. There are also improvements to data protection and security, although the extent of these could not initially be determined – Google already does not use the data uploaded to NotebookLM to train its models.
The free version of NotebookLM currently allows users to create 100 notebooks with up to 50 sources – each of which can contain 500,000 words. In addition, you can generate a maximum of 50 chat queries and 3 audio overviews per day. With NotebookLM Plus, there are now 500 notebooks with 300 sources each as well as 500 chat queries and 20 audio overviews per day. NotebookLM Plus is not marketed as an extra product for Workspace and Workspace for Education customers, but is part of the Gemini add-on, which Google charges from 20 US dollars per month per user. The Plus offering can be used within Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Business, Gemini Education and Gemini Education Premium.
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Agentspace brings AI agents into the company
Agentspace is Google's new "company-specific, multimodal search agent". It is intended to serve as a "single, centralized source of information about the entire company" via Google Cloud, the company writes. The idea is that various company departments will have easier access to existing information from the company –, including analysts who will be able to identify new industry trends, developers who will be able to find errors in existing code more quickly and marketing experts who will be able to generate "in-depth performance analysts" using Agentspace.
Later on, a visual low-code tool is to be added for creating your own "expert agents", which can also be used by non-developers. The search function will have "Google quality" and the searched data will always remain with the company itself. There are also connectors for various external tools, including Salesforce, Microsoft 365 and Box. Google shows an overview of use cases in several videos. The first users include Nokia and Deloitte Consulting. Google combines Agentspace with NotebookLM Plus for Enterprise, which is available via Google Cloud.
Further new AI functions from Google Cloud
Google last expanded its AI offering at Workspace in November. The Google Cloud office package with Docs, Sheets, Drive and Gmail was given access to Google's Gemini via a side panel for the first time in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and Korean – and no longer just in English. The video generator Vids, which is primarily intended for the production of explanatory, presentation and marketing videos, was also made widely available.
Customers with subscriptions such as Workspace Business, Enterprise, Education and Gemini as an add-on can now create short films that use license-free stock images or can be used directly on Google Drive and Google Photos – including "professional-sounding AI voiceovers", according to Google. Gemini suggests the right script to users and is designed to help them appear (more) professional in front of the camera. Vids includes its own "Video Studio" in the browser.
(mki)
