MySummaries vs Gemini Notebook (NotebookLM)
Gemini Notebook, called NotebookLM until July 2026, answers questions from your sources for free. When it is the better choice, and where MySummaries differs.
Checked 5 October 2026 against Google's own pages. Each fact about Gemini Notebook links to the page it came from; when one of those pages says something different, it is right and this page is out of date.
Gemini Notebook is NotebookLM under a new name: Google renamed it in July 2026 and says it is the same product, with existing notebooks kept.
Side by side#
| Gemini Notebook | MySummaries | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An AI research assistant: you add sources and ask questions, and the answers come from those sources, with inline citations | A study platform: your material becomes one board you check, and flashcards, mock papers, audio lectures and viva questions are written from it |
| Price | Free, signing up with a Gmail account; higher limits come with Google AI Plus, Pro or Ultra | Free plan. Standard A$29 a month or A$249 a year; Extended A$49 a month or A$419 a year (plans) |
| On the free plan | 100 notebooks, up to 50 sources in each, with usage limits that refresh every five hours, up to a weekly limit | Unlimited boards and notes; 20 generated cards, one exam, one lecture, one recorded viva, three views, three sorts, five AI imports and ten image searches; 200 MB of images (in full) |
| What you can add | PDF, Word, PowerPoint, text, Markdown, CSV and ePub files; images; audio, transcribed; web pages; the transcripts of public YouTube videos; Google Docs, Slides and Sheets | PDFs (you pick the pages), Word documents, screenshots and photos, handwriting included, pasted text, links, and recordings, transcribed. PowerPoint is saved as PDF first (how) |
| Audio | Audio Overviews: AI hosts talk through your sources, as a deep dive, a critique or a debate between two hosts or a brief from one, in 80+ languages. In interactive mode, in English, you can ask the hosts questions | Lectures: a script written from your board and read aloud, 5 or 10 minutes (15 or 20 on a plan), with a transcript that highlights each word as it is spoken and jumps to any word you click |
| Flashcards | Generated from your sources at the difficulty you pick. You mark each one Got it or Missed it, can practise only the ones you missed, and can download them as CSV | Written from your board and added only when you approve them. Scheduled by FSRS on four grades, per board, per subject or across everything due |
| Tests | Quizzes generated from your sources, easy, medium or hard | Papers of 5 to 20 short-answer or multiple-choice questions, timed if you want. Written answers are marked against a key written from your board, with the points you did not make |
| Speaking | A voice conversation with Gemini Notebook, each answer grounded in your sources, in the mobile app, for users 18 and over | A recorded viva: you answer a question aloud, and the answer is transcribed, marked criterion by criterion, and the feedback read back to you |
| Apps | Web, Android 10 and later, and iPhone and iPad on iOS 17 and later | Web, Mac (the web app in its own window), and iPhone, in beta on TestFlight. No Android app yet |
| Your material and training | Not used for training when you use it as an individual, unless you send feedback | Never used to train a model, ours or our providers' |
| Languages | 80+ languages | English, in Australian, British or American spelling, and Brazilian Portuguese |
Use Gemini Notebook if#
- You mostly want answers: questions asked across many documents, with citations you can open to check an answer against the passage it came from.
- You want to hear your material talked through in a language MySummaries does not write in.
- You want other kinds of output from the same sources: video overviews, mind maps, reports, infographics or slide decks.
- Your sources live in Google Drive: imported Docs, Slides and Sheets stay in sync with the originals.
- You need an Android app.
Where MySummaries differs#
Google describes Gemini Notebook as a research and thinking partner: you ask, and it answers from your sources. MySummaries works the other way round. It asks, and you answer — on cards, on papers and out loud to an examiner — and all of it is written from your own notes.
- One board, checked before anything is made from it. What you bring in becomes sections on a board. Nothing the AI proposes lands until you tick it, and every section has a Check button that looks for anything factually wrong or out of date.
- Cards that come back on a schedule. Every grade books the card's next review with FSRS, and what you lose marks on in a paper or a viva is written up as new cards, one tap each to add.
- Written answers, marked. A paper's written answers are marked for content against a key written from your notes, question by question, with the points you did not make.
- An examiner you answer out loud. A viva station asks one question. You answer aloud, and an examiner set up for what you are studying marks the answer criterion by criterion and reads the feedback back to you.
- Lectures you can read along with. The script is written from your board and nothing else, and every word of the transcript jumps the audio to it.
The free plan needs no payment details, only a verified email address: start free.
Gemini Notebook and NotebookLM are Google products. MySummaries is not affiliated with Google.