Google has significantly upgraded its AI-powered research assistant, NotebookLM, introducing a public sharing feature on June 3, 2025, that allows users to distribute their notebooks broadly using a simple link. Public sharing aims to simplify how users share curated content like study guides, project overviews, or business manuals, moving beyond previous, more direct sharing methods.
While recipients of a publicly shared notebook cannot edit the original source materials, they retain the ability to interact dynamically with the content. This includes asking the AI questions, generating FAQs, creating briefing documents, or listening to AI-powered audio overviews. “We are excited to see what the NotebookLM community creates. Public sharing makes NotebookLM an even more powerful tool for exploration, understanding and creation.” This development is a key step in making NotebookLM a more versatile platform for both individual research and wider knowledge dissemination.
The new feature addresses a highly requested capability, improving upon earlier sharing mechanisms which were limited to direct sharing with specific Google user email addresses. For personal Gmail accounts, this often meant a cap of 50 users.
How Public Sharing Works in NotebookLM
Creating a public notebook is designed to be straightforward. Users can find a “Share” button within their notebook and select the “Anyone with a link” option. This action generates a shareable URL. A globe icon next to the Share button will indicate if a notebook is currently public, as noted by Google Help.
Viewers accessing a public link will need a Google account, Android Authority also mentioned. Once accessed, the public notebook will appear on the viewer’s homepage for easy access, though it can be removed. While the source documents are protected from external edits, viewers can still leverage NotebookLM’s AI tools.
They can, for example, prompt the system to create podcast-style explainers with Audio Overviews or converse with the Gemini-powered chatbot about the source material. Owners or editors of the notebook can also define the level of access for viewers, restricting it to either the “Full notebook” or “Chat only,” according to Android Police.
It’s important to note that this public sharing capability is not available for Workspace Enterprise and Education accounts, a detail Android Authority highlighted, citing a Google Support Page. Furthermore, while users with free personal Google accounts can share notebooks publicly, only those with a paid subscription can view usage analytics for these shared notebooks.
NotebookLM’s Ongoing Development
This public sharing feature is the latest in a series of significant updates for NotebookLM. The tool, which originated as Project Tailwind and saw a global web launch by June 2024, has consistently expanded its capabilities.
Key enhancements include summarizing YouTube videos and audio files (September 2024), introducing a “Customize” option for AI audio summaries and a business pilot program (October 2024), and the launch of NotebookLM Plus for enterprise teams, which included shared notebooks and greater capacity (December 2024).
NotebookLM Plus later became accessible to individual users in February 2025 via the Google One AI Premium subscription. More recently, Google added Mind Maps for visual organization (March 2025), a “Discover sources” feature for web-powered research (April 2025), multilingual Audio Overviews, and dedicated mobile apps for Android and iOS along with announcing an upcoming “Video Overviews” feature (May 2025).
Data Privacy and Platform Considerations
Google emphasizes its commitment to data privacy within NotebookLM. For personal Google accounts, the company states that if users provide feedback, human reviewers may examine queries, uploads, and responses to troubleshoot or improve the model.
For Google Workspace or Education users, Google assures that “as a Google Workspace or Google Workspace for Education user, your uploads, queries and the model’s responses in NotebookLM will not be reviewed by human reviewers, and will not be used to train AI models.” The company also maintains that “your data is your data”, as per a Google Support page.
If a notebook owner deletes a public notebook or revokes public access, “any previously generated public share link will no longer work.” This control remains with the notebook owners and editors, according to Google Help. While NotebookLM offers powerful summarization, users should be aware of potential limitations; for instance, Google Cloud documentation has previously noted that its models “aren’t precise at locating text or objects in PDFs,” although this will soon change, given the improved handling of PDF documents of Gemini 2.5 Pro.
The new public sharing feature is part of Google’s broader AI strategy, which includes various subscription tiers like Google AI Pro and AI Ultra, integrating advanced Gemini models across its services.
