Since October 23, 2026, the Gemini app has offered Gemini Notebook as a connected app. What previously ran through menus in the sidebar, you now handle with a single sentence in the chat. Gemini Notebook is Google's research tool, which was called NotebookLM until July 2026.
The connection is open to personal Google accounts, all Google Workspace customers, and Workspace Individual subscribers. Outside the European Economic Area (EEA), Google turns the feature on from the start; in Germany and Austria, you have to activate it yourself.
What does Gemini do via the connection?
In the prompt, you call up the connected app with @Gemini Notebook. Google also promises that Gemini itself recognizes when a request concerns a notebook. The announcement names four types of tasks:
- Create, edit, or delete notebooks
- Add, update, or remove sources, for example with "Add a copy of this chat to my notebook for the biology course"
- List all notebooks or the sources of a notebook
- Answer questions based on the notebook content
Google is expanding the interplay between the two programs step by step: in April 2026, notebooks arrived in the sidebar of the Gemini app, and in July NotebookLM got its new name. Both programs automatically adopt changes to a notebook's name, sources, and instructions.
Only Gemini Notebook itself still generates audio summaries, video summaries, infographics, and presentations from the "Studio" section. In the Gemini app for Mac, the connection is currently missing entirely.
How do you turn on the connection in Germany?
To turn it on, open the menu in the Gemini app, tap "Customize," and select the "Connectors" section, where the connected apps are listed. In the browser, you can reach the settings for connected apps directly at gemini.google.com/apps. Switzerland is not part of the EEA; according to the wording of the announcement, the feature is active there immediately.
Google has been gradually rolling out the "Customize" menu item since October 13; it can take up to 15 days for it to arrive everywhere. If the menu item is still missing for you, use the route via the browser.
Without the "Save activity" setting, connected apps do not work in the browser and in the iPhone app. If you turn the setting off later or delete the activity history, the data remains in Gemini Notebook. In Google Workspace accounts, IT must additionally have enabled both Gemini and Gemini Notebook for your group or organizational unit.
What this means for you
If you already maintain course materials, research, or client projects in Gemini Notebook, the connection mainly saves you steps. A useful interim result from the chat can then be filed as a source in the appropriate notebook with a single sentence. It's best to try out the process first with a test notebook and two or three non-critical sources before you connect notebooks containing customer data.
If you have deliberately turned off "Save activity," it's best to keep working directly in Gemini Notebook rather than turning the setting back on just for the connection. How upload, chat, and podcast function work together there is shown in the NotebookLM course on TutKit, recorded under the old name.
Google introduced the connection on October 23, 2026, on the Google Workspace Updates blog.
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