Google is changing the name of NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, the company said Thursday, tying its AI note-taking product more directly to the Gemini brand without folding the app away.
According to Google’s announcement, Gemini Notebook will continue to operate as a standalone app. The company also said the product will connect more closely with Gemini and Google Search.
That is the practical bit for users: the app is being renamed, but Google says it is not being discontinued or absorbed into a general chatbot interface. The product remains aimed at people who use AI to work through their own materials, rather than asking a model to answer from the open web alone.
From Project Tailwind to Gemini Notebook
Google first showed the product in May 2023 under the name Project Tailwind. It was later released more broadly that year as NotebookLM, according to prior reporting by The Verge.
The basic pitch has stayed consistent through the name changes. Users bring notes and documents into a notebook, and Google’s AI tools help summarize, reorganize, and present that material in other formats. The company has steadily added more output modes around that idea.
Those additions have included AI-generated audio summaries presented like podcasts, narrated slideshow-style overviews, and short video clips in a format compared by The Verge to TikTok. Google has positioned those features as ways to help people process notes and source material, though the outputs still depend on the documents and notes users provide.
The Gemini label keeps spreading
The new name puts NotebookLM under the same umbrella as Google’s broader Gemini AI products. Google said Gemini Notebook will have deeper connections with Gemini and Search, but the company’s announcement, as reported Thursday, still describes it as a separate app.
The renaming fits a familiar Google pattern: a specialized AI product gets pulled closer to the company’s main AI brand after it proves useful enough to keep around. In this case, the mechanism is branding and integration rather than a product shutdown.
Google has not said in the announced change that existing notebooks are going away. The confirmed change is narrower: NotebookLM is becoming Gemini Notebook, and Google says the standalone app will continue while gaining tighter links to Gemini and Search.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge AI.