(This column originally appeared in Forbes)
Last year I wrote that Google’s NotebookLM is “definitely not open for business yet.” I’ve revisited. And now I can report: it is. And it’s shaping up to be 2025’s killer app for small business. Here’s why.
It is your company’s LLM.
For starters, NotebookLM is a mini-large-language-model (LLM) for your business. It’s simple to use. You and your team create folders for different purposes and then upload documents (mainly PDFs and text), connect other sites or link to YouTube videos. Yes, there are data limitations. But almost instantaneously that data is available for anyone you choose to query with clear citations for the source of its responses. Google promises that the data won’t be used for any other purposes.
It uses external data.
Second, the data is used by NotebookLM in conjunction with other, external data. So, if you’re linking to outside websites or including references to external resources, NotebookLM recognizes that and brings that information into play as well as the internal information you provided.
It’s an internal chatbot.
Third, it acts like any popular chatbot. Users can add manual notes to the folders which are then used as part of the LLM. Chats are stored. Folders can be shared both internally and externally. The other thing I appreciate is that its interface is — unlike many applications I use — simple. It’s not full of useless options, menus, taskbars, icons and other garbage that gets thrown in front of me by software makers with the intention of making my life easier but instead complicates what I’m trying to do
It speaks.
Finally, NotebookLM can converse with your team both by text and by voice. Much has been written about its ability to instantly create podcasts based on the data you’ve uploaded and that’s fun. But in a serious context, your users can choose to hear a conversation about the data — with two human sounding “hosts” — instead of reading. This is useful not only for those that may have disabilities but also for those that are driving, jogging or are just better at consuming data when it’s spoken to them instead of reading it.
How I’m using it now.
I’m just an independent user and am waiting to be accepted into the pilot program for NotebookLM Business, which promises more enterprise features and is already used — according to Google — by more than 80,000 organizations. However, I’ve still been using NotebookLM for my business in these ways.
Job Searches. I’ve been looking for a developer to hire and recently placed an ad on a job search site. Different than my experience last year — when I attempted to do the same thing — I’m now able to upload every resume I receive and have NotebookLM perform analysis. I’ve asked it to create tables for me to import into my spreadsheet. But more importantly I’ve asked it to rank the most to least qualified candidates based on the job description and it’s helping my team and I evaluate those candidates. Already, it’s saving me hours.
Financial analysis. I’ve uploaded my last few years of financial statements to a separate private notebook and asked it to analyze results and make recommendations. It’s identified trends and anomalies that I hadn’t noticed before. It pointed out to me expenses that were much higher that years past and revenue categories that had significantly declined. I haven’t uploaded my company’s tax returns yet but I plan to and then ask for tax advice, although — of course — I’ll run any responses by our outside accountant.
How I plan to use it in this year.
Now that I’m sufficiently satisfied that NotebookLM is reliable and can work for my business, here are what my plans are for this year.
Proposals. I plan to upload all the proposals we’ve done for every client and prospective client over the past five years. That way my team and I can query our proposal history for fees, services offered and to answer any other questions for future proposals where we’ve had to dig into the past to find what we did before.
Contracts. I plan to upload all the contracts we’ve done with our clients over the past five years so my team and I can use that data to not only identify trends in what we did, but to answer pricing and services questions.
Policies. We’re a very small company so it’s not like we have a human resources bureaucracy. But, like any company, we do have our policies. My plan for my business — and to recommend to my clients — is to upload all of our policies — PTO, ethics, discrimination, hiring, social media, etc. — to NotebookLM so that instead of having to answer questions about these policies I can merely direct my employees to the relevant notebook let them get their answers on their own.
Customer and vendor invoices. When we bill a client for services we send them an invoice in PDF format. When we receive invoices from our suppliers and contractors, we also get them either within an email or in PDF format. Going forward we’re going to start uploading those invoices to separate notebooks so instead of having to dig into my accounting system my team and I can quickly ask NotebookLM about customer and vendor billings.
Why not ChatGPT?
You may ask why don’t I just do this with another chatbot like ChatGPT, CoPilot or Claude? The answer is that I probably can. But we’re a Google shop and use Workspace, Gmail, and other Google applications, so this makes the most sense and positions us for future integrations which the company promises. I’m also sure that as all of these chatbots mature, they’ll be going head-to-head with similar functionalities and charging businesses for the privilege of using their services.
Will Google NotebookLM make sense for my business?
For NotebookLM to really make sense, it can’t add more hours to my day and that’s my biggest concern.
To use it for proposals, for example, I still have to first enter data into my CRM system. Then generate the proposal. Then send the proposal to the client. And then take the extra step of uploading the proposal to the appropriate notebook so that my team can then access and query it.
My question: when will Google eliminate these steps? Do I really need to save these things as files anymore? Do I need to subscribe to OneDrive or Dropbox and store files in my folders on my device? Can’t my CRM save the proposal directly to NotebookLM and can’t NotebookLM be smart enough to “create” a file for me based on my instructions that can then be emailed to the client?
I think this will happen. But not this year. However, I’m not complaining. While big companies are creating their LLMs to do customer service, offer financial advice, monitor their employees or analyze potential deals, I’m happy to create my own little LLM to offer better and more accessible information for my team to help me run my business better. NotebookLM is doing that right now. It’s shaping up to the be 2025’s killer app for small business.
