NotebookLM Is Now Gemini Notebook: What Changed and What You Keep

Google is renaming NotebookLM, one of its most popular AI research tools, to Gemini Notebook. If you use NotebookLM to study, summarize documents, or turn your notes into audio overviews, the headline you actually care about is simple: nothing you made disappears, and you do not have to move anything. This page explains what changed on July 16, 2026, what stays the same, and who gets the one genuinely new feature that came with the rename.

What changed (September 2, 2026): today is the day Google said the new Gemini Notebook limits start, and its help article adds a limit the announcement never mentioned. Google's Manage your Gemini Notebook usage limits article now carries a banner reading "Starting on September 2, 2026, there will be changes to usage limits for Gemini Notebook," and its body says the quota "refreshes every 5 hours until you reach your weekly limit". There is a weekly cap sitting on top of the five-hour refresh. The August 28 announcement said only that limits "refresh every five hours rather than daily" and did not mention a weekly limit at all, so the help article is the stricter and more complete surface. Three further facts Google publishes only there:

Google still publishes no number for any of these limits, only the multipliers. Read on both the Android and iPhone variants of the article on September 2, 2026: the limit wording is identical on all three, only the menu path differs.

What changed (August 28, 2026): your books can go in a notebook, and the way limits work is being replaced on September 2. Two separate announcements, both real changes for someone who actually uses this.

Your Google Play Books are now sources. On August 27, 2026 Google launched Expert Intelligence, which lets you add select ebooks you have purchased from Google Play Books straight into a notebook and ask questions answered from the book. More than 100,000 titles are eligible at launch. You have to own the book, and everyone in a shared notebook needs their own copy.

Usage limits are being rebuilt, starting September 2. Google's announcement says it is introducing "new flexible, compute-specific usage limits," with two changes you will feel. Limits refresh every five hours rather than daily, so a heavy morning no longer costs you the rest of the day. And your overall limit "will factor in prompt complexity, chat length, number of sources, and the features you use," rather than counting actions equally -- so a short question costs less than a Video Overview. Google says the notebook will track your usage for you and "suggest alternative outputs if your first choice surpasses your limit," and that if you do hit the limit you can defer generating things like Video Overviews or Slide Decks, which then "generate automatically" with optional notifications. Google states plainly that "you'll continue to have access to all the features that you use and love." This has not shipped yet: Google's own words are that the updates "are rolling out to consumer accounts on web and mobile starting on September 2," so nothing changes in your notebook before then. [Superseded on September 2, 2026, the stated start date -- see the note at the top of this page.]

What changed (August 19, 2026): study notebooks reached mobile, and there is now a student hub in front of them. Google's release notes entry 2026.08.19 says study notebooks, "first launched on desktop in June", are now available on mobile, and that a dedicated student hub at gemini.google.com/students collects them alongside flashcards and practice quizzes. Google's announcement links "study notebooks" to gemini.google.com/notebooks/create?subtype=study, so a study notebook is a notebook created here rather than a separate product. Google's footnote puts both on "all signed in consumer accounts in all Gemini app languages", with school-issued accounts "in the coming weeks". The same post opens a free year of Google AI Pro or AI Plus for college students, and Google's AI Plus benefits page puts that plan's Gemini Notebook allowance at up to 100 sources per notebook. Nothing about the rename or the code feature below has changed.

What Changed

NotebookLM is now called Gemini Notebook, and Google announced it on July 16, 2026. It is the same standalone product with the same purpose -- your research and learning tool -- now folded under the Gemini brand and wired more tightly into the rest of Google's apps. Google's VP for Labs and the Gemini app, Josh Woodward, framed it as a rename plus an upgrade, not a replacement, per Google's announcement. Two things arrive alongside the new name: notebooks can now run code for deeper data analysis, and they sync with the Gemini app.

Key Takeaways

• NotebookLM is renamed to Gemini Notebook as of July 16, 2026. It is the same standalone product, not a shutdown or a merger.
• Your existing notebooks, sources, and audio overviews stay put. There is nothing to migrate.
• New feature: every notebook is getting a "secure cloud computer" that can write and run code to analyze your uploaded sources.
• That code feature went live for Google AI Ultra users and eligible Workspace business customers on July 16, 2026. Google said the same day that it would reach all Pro users on the web "over the coming weeks" and has published no completion date since.
• Notebooks now sync with the Gemini app, and Google says they will reach AI Mode in Google Search soon.
• Google says more than 30 million people and 600,000 organizations use the product, which launched at Google I/O 2023 as Project Tailwind.

Does Anything You Made Disappear?

No. This is a rename, not a reset. Google is explicit that Gemini Notebook "remains a standalone product focused on being your premier research tool," so the notebooks, uploaded PDFs and links, generated summaries, and audio overviews you already created stay in the same place. You do not have to export, re-upload, or recreate anything. In practice, the app you open does the same jobs it did yesterday -- it just carries a new name and connects to more of Google's ecosystem.

What Is Actually New: Running Code in a Notebook

The real upgrade under the new name is that each notebook is getting a secure cloud computer, which lets Gemini Notebook write and execute code on its own to analyze the sources you put in. In plain terms: instead of only summarizing or answering questions about your documents, a notebook can now crunch numbers, build charts, and do deeper data analysis grounded in your own material. Google says this "enables entirely new output formats and deeper analysis." If you have ever pasted a spreadsheet into a chatbot and asked it to find the trend, this is that idea built into your research tool.

This is the one part that depends on your plan. Here is who gets code execution and when, per Google's announcement.

Who Gets the New Features

The rename reaches everyone; the new code-execution feature rolls out by plan. Everything in the table below comes directly from Google's July 16, 2026 announcement.

Google did not say the code-execution feature is coming to the free tier, so if you use Gemini Notebook at no cost, treat the rename and the Gemini-app syncing as what you get today, and the code tool as a paid-plan feature for now.

Why Google Renamed It

The rename is about consolidation: Google is pulling its consumer AI products under the single Gemini name. NotebookLM had always been a slightly separate brand, and moving it to Gemini Notebook signals that it is now part of the same family as the Gemini app and Gemini in your other Google products. The practical payoff for you is the cross-app connection -- Google says you can already create and open notebooks inside the Gemini app, with full syncing between the app and the standalone Gemini Notebook, and that notebooks will show up in AI Mode in Search soon. The product is being wired into the places you already work rather than kept off to the side.

Should You Care?

Care a little, do nothing. If you already use NotebookLM, the only thing you must do is get used to a new name; your work is safe and your workflow is unchanged. If you are on Google AI Ultra or an eligible Workspace plan, it is worth trying the new code feature on a data-heavy notebook -- a spreadsheet of results, a set of survey responses -- to see the deeper analysis it can now do. If you are a Pro user, that same feature is coming to you on the web over the next few weeks. And if you have never tried it, Gemini Notebook is still the best free tool for turning your own documents into summaries and audio overviews.

For the bigger picture on how Gemini's models compare with the alternatives, see Gemini 3.1, explained and our plain-terms guide to which AI chatbot you should pay for. If you are weighing Google's assistant against ChatGPT for everyday use, start with ChatGPT vs Gemini.

The bottom line: NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook -- same tool, same notebooks, new name, and a new code-analysis feature that starts with paid plans. There is nothing to migrate and no reason to worry that your research is going anywhere.