Published: 20 October 2026
Gemini Notebook, the Google research tool called NotebookLM until July, now has a review step for Slide Decks and Video Overviews. Before anything is generated, the notebook can show you its plan and take your corrections. Google announced the change on 19 October and says all Gemini Notebook users worldwide get it over the coming week.
Gemini Notebook suggests topics first and waits for your go-ahead
Until now, a request for slides or a video went straight from your prompt to a finished file. In the new flow, you ask in the chat or in the Studio panel, and the notebook first suggests topics from your sources. Once you confirm them, you choose the content, visual style and format.
The review sits behind a toggle. For slides it is called Review outline notes, for video Review producer notes. With the toggle on, Gemini Notebook writes the plan first, which Google says can take several minutes. You then select Review, add your feedback and select Proceed. Google’s examples are adding an executive summary and changing the order of scenes. Leave the toggle off, or pick Generate later, and you get the old one-click result.
You give feedback once, and Proceed locks the plan
Google’s help pages ask you to add all your feedback at once. After you select Proceed, you can no longer change the outline or the producer notes.
For slide decks, the lock is softer. A Revise option lets you edit the text, layout and visuals of single slides afterwards and then regenerate the deck. The help page for Video Overviews describes no way to change a finished video. Google also warns that a video can take more than 30 minutes to render. For video, the producer notes are your one real chance to steer.
Do you need Google AI Ultra for the review step?
Google’s announcement says no: the features are “rolling out globally to all Gemini Notebook users.” Its help pages for both Slide Decks and Video Overviews still say the flow is “only available for Google AI Ultra subscribers.” Google has not explained the difference. Still no toggle after the rollout week? Then check the plan requirement on the Gemini Notebook help page for Slide Decks.
Before you use it for work that leaves your team, keep these limits in mind:
- Slide decks download as PDF or PowerPoint (.pptx), so you can finish them in your own template.
- Gemini Notebook supports more than 80 languages, but Cinematic videos are English only.
- Google publishes no usage limits for the review step.
- Google states that slide decks may contain “visual or factual inaccuracies” and that videos may contain “inaccuracies or audio glitches.”
Producer notes show a wrong claim faster than a rendered video
For the organisations we work with, Gemini Notebook is mostly a way to turn reports, policy documents and research into a first presentation or a short explainer. The weak spot is a polished slide that hides a claim the sources do not support, which nobody notices until the meeting. An outline shows the structure, the claims and the gaps in one view, and reading it takes minutes.
So turn the toggle on for anything a client, manager or student will see. Check each point against the source it came from. Ask for the summary or the order your audience expects, and put all your comments in one message. Then treat the result as a first draft: download the deck as PowerPoint and finish it yourself, and watch a video in full before you share it.
For work and school accounts, an admin has to switch Gemini Notebook on first. Google states that uploads, queries and responses from those accounts are not reviewed by people and not used to train AI models. Public link sharing is also turned off for Workspace Enterprise and Education accounts. That makes the tool usable for internal material, once your organisation has decided which sources may go in.
For more information, visit the official announcement of co-creation in Gemini Notebook on the Google blog.
