🏴‍☠️ Build Your Own AI Tutor

Google’s NotebookLM for Personal AI Expertise

Captain YAR
November 09, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

I’ve spent countless hours trying to get AI chatbots to help me learn a new, complex subject. It often feels like the AI gets distracted, pulls from weird corners of the internet, or just gives me a generic, surface-level answer.
But I just stumbled upon a post from a LinkedIn creator that points to a completely different approach, and it’s one of the most powerful learning tools I’ve ever seen. The mind behind it highlights a free tool from Google that solves this exact problem, letting you build a personal AI expert on any topic imaginable.

Experience the Next Evolution of AI Intelligence

Watch The Worlds First AI Built for Cognitive Amplification live on October 15.

See how Pressmaster.ai turns one conversation into thirty days of authentic and impactful content.

Save Your Free Spot

*Ad

This tool is called NotebookLM, and its core concept is what makes it so brilliant. Instead of relying on the entire internet, it builds its knowledge base exclusively from the sources you provide. Think of it like a research assistant who has only read the specific books, articles, and videos you handed them. This “grounded” approach means its answers are always relevant, accurate, and tied directly to your material. You’re in complete control of its knowledge, which is a massive advantage for focused learning.

Building Your Personal AI Tutor

The real magic starts when you create your first notebook. The process is incredibly straightforward, but the implications are huge. The original poster explains that you can upload up to 50 different sources for each notebook. This is where you can get really creative and build a specialized brain.

Here’s a practical workflow you could use:

Topic: Learning about sustainable urban design.
Sources: You could upload a mix of content like:
- Seminal academic papers on green architecture (as PDFs).
- A few YouTube video lectures from leading city planners.
- An e-book about biomimicry in design.
- Your own Google Docs filled with class notes or random thoughts.

Once uploaded, NotebookLM synthesizes all of it. It doesn’t just store the files; it understands them. You can then start asking it questions like, “Summarize the key principles of biomimicry mentioned in the e-book and connect them to the case studies from the lecture videos.” The AI will generate a detailed, accurate response with citations pointing directly to the source material it used. This is a level of precision you just don’t get from general-purpose chatbots.

Exploring the Insane Features

Chatting with your sources is just the beginning. The post’s author points out several other features that are designed to supercharge your learning, and one of them is particularly wild. I’m talking about the audio podcast feature.

This is how this innovative professional describes it: NotebookLM can automatically generate a podcast-style conversation based on your uploaded materials. Imagine hearing two AI voices discuss the nuances of your research papers, debating the points made in your YouTube lectures.
The creator even mentions that you can join the podcast to interact with the AI hosts. I had to read that twice! It’s an immersive way to review and engage with your information that sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie.

But that’s not all. You can also get NotebookLM to:

Generate a Mindmap: Automatically create a visual map of the key concepts and their relationships within your sources. This is perfect for understanding the big picture.
Create Study Guides: Ask it to generate quizzes, flashcards, and FAQs based on your materials to test your knowledge and prepare for an exam.
Produce Briefings and Reports: Need a one-page summary of a dense, 200-page report? Just ask. It can condense complex information into digestible formats in seconds.

The Gold standard for AI news

AI will eliminate 300 million jobs in the next 5 years.

Yours doesn't have to be one of them.

Here's how to future-proof your career:

Join the Superhuman AI newsletter - read by 1M+ professionals
Learn AI skills in 3 mins a day
Become the AI expert on your team

Start learning AI now

*Ad

Other awesome AI guides you may enjoy

A Library of AI Experts

Perhaps the most powerful long-term use of NotebookLM is building a personal library of specialized AI assistants. This savvy professional isn’t just using it for one-off projects; they’re creating a team of experts. The post generously includes links to notebooks the author has already built, which is an amazing resource.

Here’s how you can apply this concept:

Your Storytelling Expert: Upload books on narrative structure, articles on brand messaging, and scripts from your favorite films. The next time you need to outline a presentation or write a compelling email, you can consult your AI expert for structural advice and narrative techniques.
Your Email Marketing Expert: Feed it a diet of top-performing email campaigns, guides on copywriting from experts like Neville Medhora, and your own past successes. Then, you can ask it to draft new email sequences based on those proven principles.
Your Productivity Expert: Upload books like Atomic Habits and Deep Work, along with articles on time management and focus. You can then ask it for a personalized daily plan to help you achieve your goals, based on the wisdom in those texts.

In partnership with

Fandom Cut Manual Moderation 74%—Join the Nov 18 Webinar

Fandom, the world’s largest fan platform with 350 million monthly visitors, needed to ensure safety, quality, and monetization across 250,000+ wikis. With Coactive, they reduced manual content moderation by 74%—freeing teams to focus on higher-value work.

Join our exclusive webinar on November 18 at 9:15 am PT / 12:15 pm ET to learn how Fandom harnessed AI to transform content moderation and ad monetization.

You’ll discover how they achieved:
• 74% fewer manual moderation hours, boosting team morale
• 50% cost savings through automated image review
• Higher ad revenue with brand-suitable content at scale

Learn how to turn your content into a powerful, monetizable asset that improves user experience and cuts costs.

A Quick Note on Nuances

While this tool is incredibly powerful, it’s worth remembering that its output is entirely dependent on the quality of your input. The classic “garbage in, garbage out” principle applies here. The effectiveness of your AI expert hinges on your ability to curate high-quality, relevant source materials.

There’s also a learning curve to mastering the art of prompt engineering and source selection to get the absolute best results. It’s a skill in itself. Luckily, the person who shared it also created a detailed guide to help you master NotebookLM, which is another fantastic contribution.

I highly recommend checking out the original post. It contains the links to NotebookLM, the pre-built expert notebooks, and the full guide to mastering the tool. It’s a truly awesome find.