Google is preparing to bring its AI-powered research assistant, NotebookLM, to smartphones and tablets, following hints last month about its expansion. New application listings have now appeared on both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
While direct downloads aren’t enabled yet, users can pre-register for automatic installation upon launch. The iOS store listing points to an expected availability date of May 20, coinciding with the start of the Google I/O 2025 developer conference, suggesting a formal announcement is likely planned for the event. However, Google has also mentioned a beta launch occurring in the “next few weeks,” potentially indicating a phased rollout.
NotebookLM carves out a specific niche compared to broader AI tools like Google Gemini. It operates as a personal research assistant, designed to work exclusively with source materials uploaded by the user – including PDFs, copied text, websites, Google Slides, audio files, and even YouTube video transcripts (support added in late 2024). Instead of searching the open web for answers, it synthesizes information, generates summaries, answers questions grounded in these specific sources, and importantly, includes citations with all its responses, facilitating verification – a key difference from more general chatbots.
Mobile Experience Details Emerge
Previews from the app store listings offer a glimpse into the mobile experience, which appears set to mirror many functions of the web version. A main screen will feature top tabs for organizing notebooks (“Recent,” “Shared,” “Title,” “Downloaded”), with each notebook entry displaying a prominent play button for its “Audio Overview.” Creating new notebooks will be handled via a wide floating action button at the bottom.
The Audio Overview feature, which creates podcast-style summaries, seems particularly well-integrated for mobile. It recently gained support for over 50 languages, leveraging Google’s Gemini models.
Google noted this multilingual expansion represents an “early look at what’s possible with this feature — we plan to keep building and refining it based on your feedback,” suggesting quality might vary initially across languages. On mobile, these audio summaries will reportedly support background playback and offline downloading, with a player interface featuring a waveform visual and allowing interaction with the AI hosts.
Crucially for mobile use, NotebookLM will integrate with the operating system’s share sheet, allowing users to easily add content like web pages or documents directly into NotebookLM from other apps. Inside a notebook, navigation will rely on a bottom bar with tabs for “Sources,” “Chat,” and “Studio (tools).” Google has also showcased tablet-optimized layouts, confirming the app will adapt to larger screens. This native application experience is expected to replace the existing Progressive Web App (PWA) for mobile users seeking a dedicated experience.
An Evolving Feature Set
The move to mobile follows considerable development on the web platform. Beyond the multilingual audio update, NotebookLM recently gained the ability to “Discover sources” by searching the web for relevant information (April 2025) and added Mind Maps for visualizing notes (March 2025). This consistent addition of features positions the mobile apps as a natural next step in making the tool more accessible.
The technology underpinning NotebookLM also appears to be influencing other Google services, with features like Audio Overviews reportedly inspiring similar audio functions being developed for Google Docs, reflecting a wider strategy of integrating Gemini AI capabilities across the Google Workspace suite.
Access and Availability Tiers
NotebookLM operates on a freemium model. The standard free tier reportedly allows up to 100 notebooks, each containing up to 50 sources (with a limit of 500,000 words per source), 50 chat queries per day, and 3 daily Audio Overview generations. For more intensive use, NotebookLM Plus offers expanded limits – 500 notebooks, 300 sources each, 500 daily queries, and 20 audio generations – along with exclusive features like customizable AI personas and specific sharing options like “chat-only” notebooks.
This premium access is bundled into the $19.99/month Google One AI Premium plan, which Google extended to individual consumers in February 2025 after an initial enterprise launch in December 2024. Highlighting a potential educational focus, Google is currently offering free Google One AI Premium access to students until spring 2026.
Availability and Data Handling
Originating as Project Tailwind at Google I/O 2023 before its global web launch in June 2024, NotebookLM is currently available to users aged 18 and over in more than 180 regions where the Gemini API is supported. Google emphasizes that user data within NotebookLM is handled according to its Workspace policies, stating “your data is your data” and confirming it isn’t used for training external AI models without explicit consent.
With the app store listings active and Google I/O just weeks away, users looking for a dedicated, source-grounded AI tool for research and synthesis on their phones and tablets should keep an eye out for the official launch, expected around May 20.
