Google's NotebookLM adds TikTok-style AI video summaries for notes
NotebookLM can now turn uploaded notes into 60-second vertical videos, with free access coming later and Google using the Emu War as its demo.
Google has started rolling out a Short video format in NotebookLM that turns uploaded sources into 60-second vertical clips for Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra subscribers. The feature works on both the web and mobile, and Google says free users will get access later.
The company’s own example reaches for an unusually vivid piece of history: Australia’s unsuccessful campaign against emus in 1932, the episode often called the Emu War. That choice shows how far Google is pushing NotebookLM beyond written summaries, toward a format built to fit the pace and presentation style of vertical mobile video.
The new clips sit beside NotebookLM’s existing Video Overviews, which Google introduced earlier in 2026 as narrated-slide summaries. Google later added a Brief format for faster takeaways, and the Short clips now extend that same idea into something even more compressed and more familiar to users who spend time in short-form video feeds. In practical terms, the product is being tuned for speed, repeatability and retention, not just recall.
NotebookLM itself has moved quickly since Google launched it as an experimental research assistant in 2023. Google added Audio Overviews in late 2024, then expanded the app’s video features in 2025 and 2026 as it tried to make the tool more multimodal, with text, audio and video all pulling from the same uploaded sources.
The rollout also fits Google’s broader AI subscription strategy. Google introduced Google AI Ultra in 2025 as its highest-tier AI plan, and at I/O 2026 on May 19, the company said Ultra would sit at the top of its subscription lineup while AI Pro and Ultra gained new features and benefits. NotebookLM’s Short videos give that paid tier another visible capability, and they point to where Google wants the product to land: not just as a way to read research faster, but as a way to repackage it for the vertical video era.
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