Google’s Kira Brakhage recently outlined how productivity tools like Gemini Notebook can help Irish SMEs tap into a €45 billion opportunity. Brakhage, an AI specialist at Google, supports SMEs across Europe and discussed the tool’s capabilities for small businesses with no technical budget and limited time.
Gemini Notebook, formerly known as NotebookLM, is used by over 13 million people worldwide in more than 600,000 organizations to transform how they work, study, and manage information. The tool is deeply integrated into the Gemini AI ecosystem and offers enterprise-grade secure infrastructure.
Gemini Notebook’s Capabilities
According to Brakhage, Gemini Notebook can function as a market research analyst for businesses, completely free of charge. The tool can process raw data, create bespoke podcasts, presentations, and more, and deliver polished results.
One of the fastest wins available to small businesses is using Gemini Notebook to process meeting transcripts. Brakhage explained that users can upload a Google Meet recording or audio file, and the tool will digest the conversation, allowing users to generate client-facing follow-up emails and other documents.
The output is strictly grounded in the specific files uploaded, and every point generated features a clickable citation. This means that the tool will not provide inaccurate details, providing accurate and reliable results.
Gemini Notebook can also be used for staff training, allowing businesses to build a 24/7 interactive onboarding mentor for new team members. By uploading documents, websites, and past training videos into a single notebook, new hires can access the information directly and ask questions, which the notebook will answer with precise citations.
Brakhage highlighted the tool’s newer features, which extend its capabilities into market and competitor research. Users can ask the tool to research a specific competitor or market trend, and it will connect to Google Search to dynamically locate relevant sources and pull real-time data into the workspace.
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The tool can also write and run its own code on uploaded data, making it a powerful asset for businesses. Additionally, the audio overviews feature can convert documents into a two-host conversation, making it easier for clients to consume information on their commute.
When asked about data privacy, Brakhage assured that Google has designed Gemini Notebook with strict institutional-grade trust boundaries, ensuring that uploaded data is completely safe and secure. By default, Google never uses the sources uploaded or the questions asked to train its public foundational GenAI models like Gemini.
Brakhage noted that she is impressed by how creative companies are getting with Gemini Notebook, using it to generate full explainer videos, audio overviews, and other content. One company in the education space, for example, uses the tool to generate training videos, which has allowed them to reach a bigger target group and scale their content creation.
Gemini Notebook is available to SMEs through the Google AI Professional Certificate, an eight-hour course delivered through Coursera, which is being offered at no cost to SME customers through Bank of Ireland’s partnership with Google. The course covers various modules, including one on Gemini Notebook, and provides a qualification at the end.
Kira Brakhage’s personal experience with Gemini Notebook has been positive, and she uses the tool every day to organize her work, find information, and draft content. She believes that the tool has the potential to greatly benefit SMEs, and its adoption is an example of how AI can be used to amplify human creativity and productivity.
Adoption and Use Cases
One example of a company using Gemini Notebook is an education platform that generates training videos using the tool. The company uploads plain text files on a specific topic, and Gemini Notebook generates an explainer video, which can be personalized and made shorter or longer. This has allowed the company to generate a large amount of content quickly and efficiently.