Google NotebookLM AI Podcast Feature Expands to More Languages

NotebookLM's Audio Overviews Expand Language Support

Google has announced that its AI-powered note-taking and research tool, NotebookLM, is now offering its Audio Overviews feature in 76 additional languages. This update, revealed on Tuesday, significantly broadens the accessibility of this innovative functionality.

What are Audio Overviews?

Launched previously, Audio Overviews enable users to transform uploaded documents – such as academic materials or legal documentation – into AI-hosted podcast-style summaries. The core purpose is to provide an alternative method for information absorption and understanding.

This expansion ensures a wider audience can leverage Audio Overviews using their native language.

New Output Language Option

Previously, Audio Overviews were automatically generated in the language set as the user’s account preference. Now, Google is introducing a dedicated “Output Language” setting.

This new option empowers users to select the desired language for their Audio Overviews, offering flexibility for multilingual content creation or study.

Practical Applications

Google illustrates the utility of this feature with an example scenario.

A teacher preparing a lesson on the Amazon rainforest could share resources in multiple languages – including Portuguese documentaries, Spanish research papers, and English reports – with students.

Students can then upload these materials and generate an Audio Overview summarizing key insights in their preferred language.

List of Newly Supported Languages

The list of newly supported languages is extensive and includes:

• Afrikaans
• Arabic
• Azerbaijani
• Bulgarian
• Bengali
• Catalan
• Czech
• Danish
• German
• Greek
• Spanish (European, Latin American, Mexico)
• Estonian
• Basque
• Persian
• Finnish
• Filipino
• French (European)
• French (Canada)
• Galician
• Gujarati
• Hindi
• Croatian
• Haitian Creole
• Hungarian
• Armenian
• Indonesian
• Icelandic
• Italian
• Hebrew
• Japanese

Further Language Additions

The expanded list continues with:

• Javanese
• Georgian
• Kannada
• Korean
• Konkani
• Latin
• Lithuanian
• Latvian
• Maithili
• Macedonian
• Malayalam
• Marathi
• Malay
• Burmese (Myanmar)
• Nepali
• Dutch
• Norwegian (Nynorsk)
• Norwegian (Bokmål)
• Oriya
• Punjabi
• Polish
• Pashto
• Portuguese (Brazil, Portugal)
• Romanian
• Russian
• Sindhi
• Sinhala
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Albanian
• Serbian (Cyrillic)
• Swedish
• Swahili
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Thai
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Urdu
• Vietnamese
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)

Google communicated this information to TechCrunch via email, highlighting the commitment to global accessibility.