Gemini Notebooks is Google's latest attempt to turn its AI assistant into a practical workspace rather than just a chat window.
The new Notebooks feature in Gemini lets users group long-running chats, files and notes into dedicated workspaces for research, content creation or study.
From the Gemini side panel on the web, you can create a notebook, pull in existing Gemini conversations, upload PDFs and documents, and add custom instructions so the AI responds with the right tone and priorities for that project.
Once a notebook is set up, Gemini answers by drawing on the curated material inside it, alongside web search, to deliver more contextual and consistent responses over time.
Google says this should make it easier to handle multi-step tasks such as exam preparation, complex research or long-form writing without repeatedly re-entering background information.
Gemini Notebooks is tightly integrated with Google's NotebookLM, the company's AI research tool that analyses user-provided sources.
Any notebook created in Gemini automatically syncs with NotebookLM, allowing users to switch between drafting in Gemini and generating structured outputs such as summaries, study guides, audio or video overviews in NotebookLM using the same set of documents.
Google highlights a typical flow: upload study material or project documents in Gemini, use NotebookLM to produce structured insights, then return to Gemini to draft essays, emails or reports grounded in that material.
Support for the number and type of sources linked to a notebook will vary by subscription tier, with higher plans allowing larger and more complex workflows.
Gemini Notebooks is rolling out this week on the web to subscribers of the Google AI Ultra, Pro and Plus plans, with mobile access, more European markets and free-tier availability promised in the coming weeks.
The feature is not yet broadly available to under-18 users or all Workspace and Education accounts, underscoring that this is an early consumer-focused launch.
The move inevitably invites comparisons with OpenAI's ChatGPT Projects, introduced in December 2024, which similarly lets users organise chats, files and custom instructions into structured folders.
For now, Google is betting that the combination of Gemini Notebooks and NotebookLM will give its ecosystem an edge as AI tools shift from one-off prompts to persistent, project-based workflows.