Google’s silence on NotebookLM at I/O proves why people don’t trust their products

WWDC is just days away, and despite being a die-hard Apple fan, the tech event I was looking forward to most this year was Google I/O. I knew it was going to be a keynote with the word “AI” mentioned an absurd amount of times. However, I put all that aside because Google’s AI efforts have been something I’ve openly rooted for. But it wasn’t AI Overviews, AI Mode in Search, Gemini (or whatever Bard was), or Gemini in Google Maps plus every other Google app, that pulled me in. It was NotebookLM.

Of all the AI products Google has shipped, retired, rebranded, and re-shipped, NotebookLM is the one that felt like a real product made by people who actually used it. I’ve written an insane number of articles about it, rely on it extensively, and I’m constantly talking about it to anyone that will listen. Naturally, I sat down for the Google I/O keynote with one simple expectation: show me what’s next for the one Google AI product I actually love. And then… almost nothing.