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NotebookLM Updates: How to use the Custom Reports, Flashcards, and more
OpenAI and Oracle ink massive $300B deal, FTC probes big tech over chatbot safety, Perplexity raises $200M at $20B valuation and more!
Everyday AI
September 11, 2025
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Outsmart The Future
Sup yāall š
Hope youāre ready for a lotta learning this week.
Iāve been a bit under the weather, so we had to run a replay or two this week.
To make up for it today, we brought you a double dose of AI at Work on Wednesdays (on a Thursday) going over NotebookLMās newest features.
Spoiler alertā¦ theyāre REALLY good.
Oh, we put together a database of 20 real business use-cases for these new NotebookLM features.
If you want access to this databaseā¦. Go repost todayās show on LinkedIn and weāll send them over!
āļø
Jordan
Today in Everyday AI
6 minute read
š Daily Podcast Episode: NotebookLM just got a major upgrade. Custom reports, flashcards, quizzes, and new audio formats are here. Learn how NotebookLMās latest features can transform your workflow. Give it a listen.
šµļøāāļø Fresh Finds: Google AI says DOGE never existed, California looks to pass AI chatbot bill and Albania puts an AI-created minister in charge. Read on for Fresh Finds.
š Byte Sized Daily AI News: OpenAI and Oracle ink massive $300B deal, FTC probes big tech over chatbot safety and Perplexity raises $200M at $20B valuation. For that and more, read on for Byte Sized News.
š§ Learn & Leveraging AI: Missed the latest NotebookLM updates? We break down what they are and how they change the game for your business. Keep reading for that!
ā©ļø Donāt miss out: Did you miss our last newsletter? We talked about Anthropicās $1.5B book settlement being paused, Adobe launching 6 AI agents, publishers rolling out pay-to-scrape licensing and more. Check it here!
NotebookLM Updates: How to use the Custom Reports, Flashcards, and more š”
You probably slept on this HUGE AI update.
Over the past few days, Google has quietly turned NotebookLM into a powerhouse.
(As if it wasnāt already.)
With new customizations and features, our 2024 Tool of the Year got even more powerful. (Ohā¦ did we mention itās free?!)
So, how do you use the new features?
And what are some practical use-cases to help you get ahead?
Join us and weāll dish.
Also on the pod today:
ā¢ New Audio Podcast Formats in NotebookLM š
ā¢ NotebookLM vs. Gemini/ChatGPT Differences š¤
ā¢ NotebookLM Studio: Audio, Video, Mind Map Tools š ļø
Itāll be worth your 41 minutes:
Listen on our site:
Click to listen
Subscribe and listen on your favorite podcast platform
Listen on:
Hereās our favorite AI finds from across the web:
New AI Tool Spotlight ā Kiva is an AI SEO agent, Alter is an AI copilot for your Mac and Peek is an AI personal finance coach.
Google ā Googleās AI is telling people DOGE never existed.
AI Governance ā A California bill that would regulate AI chatbots is close to becoming a law.
AI in Government ā Albania has put an AI-created minister in charge of public procurement.
AI Startups - Thinking Machine Lab wants to make AI models more consistent.
AI in Media ā Roku is looking to add more AI-generated ads.
1. OpenAI Inks $300B Cloud Deal with Oracle š¤
OpenAI and Oracle agreed to a deal to buy roughly $300 billion in computing power over about five years, one of the largest cloud commitments ever and set to begin in 2027. The partnership ties into the Stargate datacenter effort (announced with SoftBank and former President Trump) and follows Oracle reporting huge additions to future contract revenue that helped lift its stock and Larry Ellisonās net worth.
The report also links OpenAI to a separate roughly $10 billion Broadcom chip contract, signaling a push to lock down both data-center capacity and custom silicon.
2. FTC Probes Big Tech Chatbotsā Risks to Kids šµļøāāļøļø
The Federal Trade Commission has sent inquiries to OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, Snap, Character.AI and xAI to review how chatbots acting as companions might harm children and teens, asking what safety steps firms have taken and how they're warning parents, according to CBS/AP.
The action follows lawsuits and evidence that chatbots can give dangerous advice and after recent vendor updates (OpenAI and Meta) to add teen protections and parental controls ā a timely regulator push as young people increasingly use AI for emotional support.
3. Perplexity Raises $200M at $20B Valuation š
Perplexity has secured $200 million in new funding at a $20 billion valuation, two months after a separate raise that valued the AI search startup at $18 billion, according to The Information. The companyās ARR is reported to be nearing $200 million, underscoring fast commercial traction as it markets conversational search as an alternative to Google.
The timing is notable: Perplexity made a high-profile $34.5 billion bid for Googleās Chrome amid antitrust drama, though a judge recently blocked a forced Google breakup, keeping the competitive landscape intact.
4. Microsoft Adds Scripted Audio Mode to Copilot Audio Expressions šļø
Microsoft is rolling out a new scripted mode for Copilot Audio Expressions that uses its MAI-Voice-1 models to read user text in varied styles ā including a seasonal āvampireā voice ā the company previewed recently.
The update brings richer, in-house synthetic voice options to Copilot, making AI-generated spoken content faster and more polished for creators, presentations, or customer-facing audio.
5. Ant Group Debuts R1 Humanoid Chef-Bot at Global Shows š¦¾
Ant Groupās robotics arm Robbyant showcased its R1 humanoid ā seen cooking shrimp at IFA 2025 and demoed in Shanghai ā signaling the companyās push into AI-driven physical robots.
The firm pitches R1 for care, companionship and tour-guide roles, and says itās testing units in community centers and restaurants, but has not disclosed price or launch timing. The slow, staged demos suggest performance is still limited, so businesses and workers should be cautious about short-term operational deployments.
6. Adobe Says AI Use is Now Table Stakes for Top Companies š
According to Adobe, 99% of Fortune 100 companies have used AI in an Adobe app and nearly 90% of Adobeās top 50 enterprise accounts have adopted its AI-first tools, signaling fast enterprise-wide adoption of products like GenStudio, Firefly Services and Acrobat AI Assistant.
The announcement is timely: as firms race to produce massive volumes of personalized content, Adobe positions itself as the integrated creative-and-marketing AI platform that can cut costs and speed campaigns.
š¦¾How You Can Leverage:
NotebookLM gets slept on more than Casper pillows.
While ChatGPT breaks user records and Gemini 2.5 Pro grabs the benchmark charts, Googleās NotebookLM keeps getting better and better.
While many people saw the viral AI Deep Dive podcast from NotebookLM as a temporary party trick, Google has been packing more and more power into what won our Best AI Tool of 2024.
Yeahā¦ itās that good.
And over the past week-ish alone, Google has dropped multiple handfuls of new updates and features.
So letās dive in shorties. Hereās what you need to know.
1 ā Reports (Finally) as Unique as Your Biz š
You've been living in generic AI report purgatory when it comes to NotebookLM.
Before these latest updates, every "strategic analysis" read like it came from the same boring template because that's exactly what happened.
Here's the brutal truth about your current AI reports: they're pulling from the entire internet, mixing your competitor's strategies with random blog posts, and serving up recommendations that could apply to literally any company.
NotebookLM's new custom reports only work with YOUR data.
Upload your quarterly results, competitor intel, and market research, then generate completely different strategic documents for different stakeholders from the same source material.
And now reports can be as custom as you want, choosing language, length and leaving custom instructions.
Your board gets executive summaries. Your team gets tactical breakdowns. Your investors get risk analysis.
Zero hallucinations. Complete source citations. Actual strategic value instead of generic fluff.
Try This:
Upload your last three quarterly reports plus competitor analysis docs to NotebookLM right now.
Generate a board-ready executive summary focusing on competitive positioning, then create a tactical implementation guide for department heads using the exact same data.
You'll get two completely different strategic documents tailored to each audience's decision-making needs in under five minutes.
Your next board meeting just got way more focused.
2 ā Audio Briefings That Match Executive Brains š§
Your C-suite learns differently but gets the same boring presentations.
(Letās be honest. No oneās reading those boring PowerPoints that look like Windows XP vibes.)
Some executives want rapid-fire updates during commute time. Others need deep-dive risk analysis. Your strategy team wants to hear multiple perspectives debated.
NotebookLM has always been great for creating custom, AI-generated podcasts from your content. But, they were sometimes all kinda the same.
NotebookLMās latest drop now creates brief overviews (1-2 minutes for busy CEOs), critique formats (expert reviews highlighting risks), and debate formats (exploring controversial decisions from multiple angles) in addition to the āold schoolā Deep Dive templates that brought NotebookLM early fame.
Same data. Completely different delivery methods matched to how each executive actually processes information.
Your CEO gets the brief version. Your risk-averse CFO gets the critique format. Your strategy team gets the debate version.
Boom.
Try This:
Load your current project documentation and create three different audio overviews immediately.
Generate a "brief" version for time-pressed executives, a "critique" version highlighting potential risks, and a "debate" version exploring different strategic approaches.
Send each format to the appropriate stakeholders and watch engagement rates jump compared to your usual email attachments.
3 ā Learn Tools That Actually Sharpen Your Brain š§
TBH, sometimes using AI tools TOO much can make us all kindaā¦. Dumb.
If weāre using LLMs a good chunk of our day to help create deliverables in our area of expertise, then that expertise eventually becomesā¦. Less expert-y.
While your competitors are getting lazy with copy-paste AI outputs, the new flashcards and quizzes in NotebookLM turn your internal docs into active learning systems that strengthen knowledge retention.
You can customize difficulty levels, number of questions, and specific topics from your uploaded content. When someone gets an answer wrong, they instantly get detailed explanations with exact source citations and timestamps ā no more guessing where information came from.
The system highlights wrong answers, shows correct ones, and explains the reasoning behind each choice. You can even create trick questions that test deeper understanding rather than surface-level memorization.
Your sales team can drill on competitive objections until responses become automatic. Your leadership team can stay sharp on industry trends. Your entire organization can maintain consistent messaging without the usual knowledge decay.
That's the hidden cost of information overload ā your competitive edge gets dull when you can't retain what matters most.
Try This:
Upload your competitor pricing sheets and objection handling docs to NotebookLM immediately.
Generate flashcards focusing on "pricing responses and feature comparisons for high-stakes deals."
Have your sales team spend ten minutes daily drilling these scenarios until responses become second nature.
Track win rates before and after implementation ā the confidence boost alone will transform your presentations.
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