Steven Johnson has written 13 books, on subjects starting from a London cholera outbreak to the value of video games. He’s been a television presenter and a podcast host. He’s a keynote speaker who doesn’t should name himself that in his LinkedIn profile. And for over a 12 months now, he’s been a full-time worker of Google, a standing that’s clear when he badges me into the search big’s Chelsea places of work in New York to point out me what his staff has been creating.

It’s known as NotebookLM, and the best means to consider it’s as an AI collaborator with entry to all of your supplies that sits in your metaphorical shoulder to information you thru your undertaking. NotebookLM was soft-launched to a choose group earlier this 12 months however is now obtainable to all as an “experiment”—that’s Google’s low-risk technique to see how the app behaves and the way we behave with the app.

Johnson discovered his technique to Google by means of a lifelong obsession with software program as a “a dynamic thought partner,” a device to hurry up and improve the artistic course of. When he was in faculty he grew to become obsessive about HyperCard, Apple’s software program that broke data into chunks and allowed you to navigate an information-space by means of hyperlinks. It anticipated internet navigation earlier than the net existed. “I fought mightily to turn HyperCard into that dream tool, but it wasn’t quite ready,” he says. He ultimately grew to become an fanatic of Scrivener, a mix phrase processor and undertaking organizer fashionable with e book authors. (I’m a fan too.)

When Johnson acquired entry to OpenAI’s GPT-3 text generator in 2021, he recognized that AI might stage up a brand new era of thought instruments. Oh, wait, he stated to himself, this factor that has all the time been at the back of my thoughts is now going to be attainable. Scenarios unthinkable even a 12 months earlier than have been instantly on the desk. Johnson didn’t but know that Google not solely had comparable massive language fashions, however was already engaged on a undertaking very a lot in step with his pondering. In May 2022, a small staff within the experimental Google Labs division cold-emailed Johnson. They arrange a gathering through Starline, a Google Labs undertaking that permits for eerily intimate in-person conferences. “I basically had a conversation with a hologram who said, ‘You know, this thing you’ve been chasing your whole life? We can finally build it,’” Johnson says. He grew to become a part-time adviser to the small staff, at first sharing the workflow of knowledgeable author. “Here’s four or five engineers, here’s an actual author, let’s just watch him,” is how Google Labs head Josh Woodward sums up the method. Eventually Johnson acquired concerned within the growth of the product itself and was sucked in to the purpose of accepting a full-time gig. His title at Google Labs is editorial director.

NotebookLM, initially known as Project Tailwind, begins by creating a knowledge set of your supply materials, which you drag into the device from Google Docs or the clipboard. After the app has digested all of it, you’ll be able to then ask NotebookLM questions on your materials, due to Google’s massive language mannequin expertise—partly powered by its just-released upgrade Gemini. The solutions mirror not solely what’s in your supply materials but additionally the broader common understanding of the world that Gemini has. A vital function is that each reply to your queries comes with a set of citations reporting the place precisely the knowledge got here from, so customers can examine the accuracy of its output.

Google is just not the one firm envisioning merchandise that permit folks create customized information units to discover with LLMs. At OpenAI’s developer day final month, the corporate launched customized mini-GPTs that may be tuned to a selected activity. Woodward acknowledges a “core similarity.” But he argues that NotebookLM focuses extra on enhancing a workflow, and is geared to supply superior accuracy in its outputs. Also, he says that the OpenAI merchandise have extra of a character, whereas NotebookLM is designed to haven’t any such pretensions.