Video Overviews in NotebookLM Updated With Google’s Nano Banana AI Model, Six New Visual Styles

Google on Monday announced new features for NotebookLM to help users better understand complex topics. The company is bringing Nano Banana — its artificial intelligence (AI) image model — to Video Overviews, taking advantage of its generation speed, element-based editing, and consistent character. As per the company, there are six new visual styles in Video Overviews, including Anime, Heritage, and Retro Print. Alongside, Google is also rolling out two new formats to generate a detailed summary with the AI feature.

Nano Banana in Video Overviews

According to Google, Video Overviews can convert notes and documents into narrated videos for easier understanding, leveraging the company's proprietary AI models. It is now adding Gemini's image generation model called Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, otherwise known as Nano Banana, to the AI feature.

This update will provide users with more options for how Video Overviews appear and feel, the company said in a blog post.

With Nano Banana, Video Overviews in NotebookLM can generate helpful, contextual and visually appealing illustrations based on the sources uploaded by the user to better understand and remember them. It will use one of the following six new visual styles when generating content:

1. Anime

2. Heritage

3. Papercraft

4. Retro Print

5. Watercolour

6. Whiteboard

Google previously claimed that this AI model offers state-of-the-art (SOTA) speed and quality in image generation. It can also maintain a higher character consistency while editing elements within the image, such as changing the colour of the t-shirt or adding a hat to a person without affecting the subject in the frame.

Apart from this, the Mountain View-based tech giant announced two new formats for generating content: Explainer and Brief.

• Explainer - Google says this creates a structured and comprehensive video based on the input sources for a more in-depth and higher level of understanding.

• Brief - As the name suggests, Brief is a new bite-sized video format to quickly help learn about the core ideas of a document.

Here's how you can give the new features a try and generate Video Overviews in NotebookLM:

1. Select your preferred sources in NotebookLM and click on the Video Overview option.

2. To further customise a video, select the pencil icon on the Video Overview file.

3. You can choose between the format and visual style. It can also be further customised with prompts like, “convert recipe into an easy-to-follow video, focusing on the prep time and cooking steps”.

4. Google will then generate a notebook with a Video Overview of the topic.

As per Google, the new features in Video Overviews will begin rolling out in all supported languages to Pro users this week. It will be expanded to all users in the near future.