Best NotebookLM Alternatives in 2026 (Now Gemini Notebook)
NotebookLM is now called Gemini Notebook, and since September 2026 its mobile app can record audio. The best alternative depends on what you need. To record lectures and meetings in the same workspace as your documents, HyNote records in any web browser and on your phone, including on its Free plan; ChatGPT Record also records meetings, but only in the macOS desktop app on paid plans. For document-only research, the closest alternatives are ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects, Perplexity Projects, and, for academic papers, Elicit. For scheduled video calls, Otter or Fireflies fit better. HyNote is free to start, with no credit card required.
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What changed about NotebookLM in 2026?
Two things. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook in July 2026 — same product, new name. Then in September 2026 Google added an audio recorder to the Gemini Notebook mobile app for Android and iOS, for capturing lectures and recording thoughts. Google says the recorder is available to Workspace customers and personal Google accounts, with recordings kept alongside a notebook's other sources.
The same update added real-time voice conversations with a notebook in nearly 100 languages, rolling out first to Google AI Ultra subscribers. If mobile recording was the only reason you were leaving, Gemini Notebook may now cover it.
What does Gemini Notebook still not cover?
Based on Google's September 2026 announcement, three gaps remain for people who record as much as they read:
- Recording on a computer. Google describes the recorder as part of the mobile app. Online lectures and calls you attend on a computer need another tool, such as HyNote in a browser or ChatGPT Record on a Mac.
- Speaker identification. The announcement does not mention labeling who said what.
- Meeting capture. Gemini Notebook does not join Zoom, Meet, or Teams calls the way Otter and Fireflies do.
Which NotebookLM alternatives also record lectures and meetings?
HyNote, Otter, Fireflies, and ChatGPT Record all capture audio, in different places and on different plans. We build HyNote, so read that entry with that in mind. We have kept the cases where another tool — or staying on Gemini Notebook — is the better choice. Competitor details were verified on their official pages on September 23, 2026.
HyNote — for recordings and documents in one workspace
Best for: students and professionals whose week mixes lectures or meetings with PDFs and readings, on a laptop as well as a phone.
HyNote covers Gemini Notebook's core workflow — add sources, ask questions across them — and records in any web browser and on iOS and Android, including screen audio, with no meeting bot, for up to 120 minutes per session on every plan, including Free. Sources include PDFs up to 50 MB or 500 pages, .docx, .txt, and .md files, uploaded audio, images with text recognition, YouTube links, and web pages, all in the same workspace as your recordings. High-accuracy speaker identification is on the Plus plan ($10.83/month billed annually) and above. Pro is $6.66/month billed annually ($11.99 monthly).
Where it falls short: there is no student discount, high-accuracy speaker identification requires the Plus plan or above, and each recording session is capped at 120 minutes, shorter than ChatGPT Record's 4 hours.
ChatGPT Record — for Mac users on a paid ChatGPT plan
Best for: people who already pay for ChatGPT and record meetings on a Mac.
ChatGPT's record mode transcribes and summarizes meetings, brainstorms, and voice notes, for up to 4 hours per session. It distinguishes multiple speakers and uses generic labels such as Speaker 1 that you can rename. OpenAI says record mode is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu, and only in the ChatGPT macOS desktop app. Summaries are saved as canvases in your chat history.
Where it falls short: it does not run in a web browser, on Windows, or on a phone, and it is not on the Free plan.
Otter — for scheduled video calls
Best for: people whose week is Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls.
Otter sends a bot to transcribe scheduled calls, labels speakers, and also records on web and mobile. The free Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes per month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 lifetime file imports, and 20 AI Chat queries. Pro is $16.99/user/month, or $8.33/user/month billed annually, with 1,200 recording minutes and up to 90 minutes per meeting. Students and teachers with a .edu email get 20% off Pro.
Where it falls short: Otter's imports are audio and video files, not documents, so it does not replace Gemini Notebook's research workflow.
Fireflies — for sales and customer teams
Best for: teams that need meeting notes to reach their CRM.
Fireflies captures meetings through a bot on Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams and pushes summaries into business tools. The free plan includes unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team, and 20 AI credits. Pro is $18/seat/month, or $10/seat/month billed annually.
Where it falls short: bot-based capture does not suit in-person lectures or interviews, and it is not a document tool.
Notion AI — for teams that already work in Notion
Best for: teams whose docs and projects already live in Notion.
Notion AI adds chat, writing, and AI Meeting Notes to a workspace your team already uses. Full Notion AI, including AI Meeting Notes, is included on the Notion Business plan; the Free and Plus plans get a trial of Notion AI.
Where it falls short: material captured outside Notion takes an extra step to bring in.
Recording NotebookLM alternatives compared
| Feature | HyNote | ChatGPT Record | Gemini Notebook | Otter | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it records | Any web browser, iOS, Android; mic or screen audio | ChatGPT macOS desktop app only | Gemini Notebook mobile app (Android/iOS) | Web and mobile, plus meeting bot | Meeting bot only |
| Max per session | 120 min, all plans | 4 hours | Not stated by Google | 30 min free, 90 min Pro | Not stated |
| Speaker labels | High-accuracy on Plus, Unlimited, Teams | Yes, renameable | Not mentioned in Google's announcement | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs and documents in same workspace | Yes — PDF up to 50 MB / 500 pages | Summaries saved as canvases in chat history | Yes | No | No |
| Records on free plan | Yes | No — Plus and above | Yes, with a personal Google account | Yes — 300 min/month | Meeting bot only |
| Entry paid price | Pro $6.66/mo billed annually ($11.99 monthly) | ChatGPT Plus | Via Google AI plans | Pro $8.33/user/mo billed annually ($16.99 monthly) | Pro $10/seat/mo billed annually ($18 monthly) |
Which NotebookLM alternatives are best for document research?
If you never record and only need to upload sources and ask questions across them, these tools are the closest replacements for Gemini Notebook's research workflow. None of them is built around recording lectures or in-person meetings.
ChatGPT Projects — for files plus ChatGPT's general assistant
ChatGPT Projects group chats, files, and instructions in one place. You can add PDFs, spreadsheets, docs, images, and pasted text, plus links from Google Drive and Slack, and choose project-only memory. Projects are available to signed-in users on every ChatGPT plan, with up to 5 files per project on Free, 25 on Go and Plus, and 40 on Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu.
Where it falls short for NotebookLM users: 5 files per project on the Free plan is a small source set compared with a notebook of readings.
Claude Projects — for long documents and writing
Claude Projects combine a knowledge base of documents, text, and code with project instructions and a contained chat history. Projects are available on free Claude accounts, which can create up to five projects. Paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) add expanded project knowledge that Anthropic says can increase capacity by up to 10x.
Where it falls short for NotebookLM users: Claude's Projects documentation describes documents, text, and code, not audio or YouTube sources.
Perplexity Projects (formerly Spaces) — for web research plus your files
Perplexity Projects keep searches, files, instructions, and connected tools in one shareable workspace. A project can hold up to 5,000 files and 2.5 GB, with individual files up to 100 MB, and you can add web links and domains to prioritize in its searches.
Where it falls short for NotebookLM users: Perplexity's Projects documentation does not describe audio recording or transcription.
Elicit — for academic papers
Elicit is an AI research assistant for scientific literature. It searches more than 138 million papers, summarizes them, extracts data, and lets you chat with papers and uploaded PDFs. The free Basic plan includes unlimited search, unlimited summaries, and chat with full-text papers. Pro is $49/month or $588/year; Scale is $169/month or $2,028/year.
Where it falls short for NotebookLM users: it is built for published research, not for your own lectures, meetings, or mixed course material.
| Feature | ChatGPT Projects | Claude Projects | Perplexity Projects | Elicit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Files and chats with ChatGPT's general assistant | Long documents, writing, and code | Web research plus your files | Academic papers (138M+) |
| Sources you can add | PDFs, spreadsheets, docs, images, text; Google Drive and Slack links | Documents, text, code, other files | Files (up to 5,000 per project, 100 MB each), web links, connectors | Paper search plus uploaded PDFs |
| Free plan | Yes — 5 files per project | Yes — up to 5 projects | Not stated in Perplexity's Projects documentation | Yes — unlimited search and summaries |
| Records lectures or meetings | No (ChatGPT Record is separate: macOS app, paid plans) | Not described in Claude's Projects documentation | Not described in Perplexity's Projects documentation | No — papers and PDFs |
Stay on Gemini Notebook — if you only work from documents
If your work is a fixed set of PDFs and web sources that you analyze in depth, and any recording happens on your phone, Gemini Notebook is very good at exactly that. Leave it when you need laptop recording, speaker labels, or meeting capture.
How do I choose a NotebookLM alternative?
- Where do you record? If you record online lectures or calls on a computer, Gemini Notebook's mobile recorder will not capture them. HyNote and Otter record in any browser; ChatGPT Record records in the macOS desktop app on paid plans. If you never record, a document tool such as ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects, Perplexity Projects, or Elicit may be enough.
- How much of your material is reading? If a third or more is PDFs and documents, a meeting tool will not replace Gemini Notebook; you need a multimodal workspace or two tools.
- Does attribution matter? If you need to know who said what, choose a tool with speaker identification — HyNote Plus and above, ChatGPT Record, Otter, or Fireflies.
HyNote at a glance
| Capability | Detail |
|---|---|
| Recording | Web and mobile, mic or screen audio, no meeting bot; up to 120 minutes per session on all plans |
| Sources | Recordings, uploaded audio, PDFs (50 MB / 500 pages), .docx/.txt/.md, images with OCR, YouTube links, web pages |
| Speaker labels | High-accuracy speaker identification on Plus, Unlimited, and Teams |
| Ask your notes | Chat with All Notes across every recording and document |
| Outputs | Summaries, key points, Study Notes, Flashcards, Quiz, meeting minutes, 30+ templates |
| Export | Google Docs, Notion, PDF, TXT |
| Devices | Web, iOS, Android, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Chrome extension |
| Privacy | AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit, hosted on Google Cloud Platform; aligned with GDPR and CCPA; content never used to train models; third-party penetration testing |
| Price | Free to start; paid plans from $6.66/month billed annually ($11.99 monthly) |
How much does HyNote cost?
HyNote is free to start with no credit card. The Free plan includes audio recording and transcription up to 120 minutes per session, file uploads, professional templates, and sync across web, mobile, and tablet. Pro is $6.66/month billed annually ($11.99 monthly) and adds 1,200 transcription minutes per month and transcript export. Plus is $10.83/month billed annually ($18.99 monthly) and adds high-accuracy speaker identification, live translation, and note transfer to Google Docs and Notion. Unlimited is $15.83/month billed annually ($24.99 monthly) with unlimited real-time transcription. Teams is $15 per seat/month billed annually ($180 per seat/year), from 2 seats. Pro, Plus, and Unlimited include a 7-day free trial. See full pricing at https://hynote.ai/pricing.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to NotebookLM?
It depends on what you need that Gemini Notebook, formerly NotebookLM, does not do. To record lectures or meetings alongside your documents, HyNote is the closest replacement: it covers the same upload-and-ask workflow and records in any web browser and on iOS and Android, with high-accuracy speaker identification on its Plus plan and above. For document-only research, ChatGPT Projects, Claude Projects, and Perplexity Projects are the closest alternatives, and Elicit is built for academic papers. For scheduled video calls, Otter or Fireflies fit better.
Is NotebookLM now called Gemini Notebook?
Yes. Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook in July 2026. It is the same research notebook, and most reviews and community threads still use the original name.
Can NotebookLM record audio now?
Yes. In September 2026 Google added an audio recorder to the Gemini Notebook mobile app for Android and iOS, for capturing lectures and recording thoughts. Google says it is available to Workspace customers and personal Google accounts, with recordings kept alongside a notebook's other sources.
Which NotebookLM alternative can record lectures on a laptop?
HyNote and Otter both record in a web browser. HyNote records mic or screen audio for up to 120 minutes per session on every plan, including Free, and keeps the recording with your PDFs and other sources. Otter records on web and mobile and joins scheduled Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls with a bot, with a 30-minute per-conversation limit on its free plan. ChatGPT Record records meetings for up to 4 hours, but only in the ChatGPT macOS desktop app on Plus and higher plans.
Does ChatGPT record meetings like HyNote?
Yes, with different limits. ChatGPT's record mode transcribes and summarizes meetings for up to 4 hours per session and labels speakers, and OpenAI says it is available on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu, only in the macOS desktop app. HyNote records in any web browser and on iOS and Android, including on its Free plan, for up to 120 minutes per session, and keeps each recording in the same workspace as your PDFs, images, and YouTube sources.
What is the best NotebookLM alternative for academic papers?
Elicit is built for academic literature. It searches more than 138 million papers, summarizes and extracts data from them, and lets you chat with papers and uploaded PDFs; its free Basic plan includes unlimited search and summaries. HyNote fits better when your research mixes papers with recorded lectures, interviews, or seminars.
Which NotebookLM alternative identifies speakers?
HyNote includes high-accuracy speaker identification on its Plus, Unlimited, and Teams plans. ChatGPT Record, Otter, and Fireflies also label speakers. Google's announcement of the Gemini Notebook recorder does not mention speaker identification.
Is there a free NotebookLM alternative?
Yes. HyNote's Free plan costs $0 with no credit card and includes recording and transcription up to 120 minutes per session plus PDF, image, YouTube, and web page sources. Otter's free Basic plan includes 300 transcription minutes per month with a 30-minute per-conversation limit. Fireflies' free plan includes unlimited transcription with 400 minutes of storage per team.
Does HyNote keep my recordings private?
HyNote encrypts data at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS 1.2+, hosted on Google Cloud Platform. HyNote is aligned with GDPR and CCPA, does not use customer content to train its models, and commissions third-party penetration testing.
Try the NotebookLM alternative that records on your laptop
Record a lecture or meeting in your browser, add the PDF and the YouTube link, and ask one question across all of it. Start free at https://hynote.ai/login, no credit card required. Comparing more closely? See HyNote vs Otter vs Fireflies vs NotebookLM.