The Drive AI also offers an AI writing assistant powered by multiple AI models, including GPT-4, Claude, and Gemini.
The multi-modal capabilities of The Drive AI allow various AI models like GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 1.5 Flash, and DeepSeek R1 to extract information from documents. In contrast, NotebookLM limits the use to Gemini models.
Nouswise boasts an intriguing feature called Visual Podcast, which is akin to an Audio Overview, where two hosts summarize your sources. At present, the Visual Podcast mode only supports PDF files, unlike NotebookLM, which has no such limitations and can even analyze YouTube videos in an Audio Overview. When you upload PDFs to Nouswise, you need to provide a prompt about your source, which I find to be an unnecessary extra step. Further, you have to wait for the podcast to be generated, a process that can take up to ten minutes.
Despite primarily focusing on organizing and storing files, NotebookLM also features a chat option to interact with uploaded content, including videos, audios, images, YouTube URLs, and PDFs. You can pose questions about your files, and the tool provides AI-generated answers with citations, similar to NotebookLM.
In some aspects, I found it even better than NotebookLM. During discussions, it would display specific pages to follow along easily.
The variety of models doesn’t significantly impact me, as my priority is to obtain accurate information regardless of the AI model used.
Nonetheless, The Drive AI restricts free users to five questions, whereas NotebookLM allows up to 50 queries. Despite appreciating The Drive’s thoughtful questions and model versatility, this query limit could be seen as a drawback.
Nouswise also emphasizes sources, and once its API processes your uploaded material, it claims to “always answer from the sources in focus.” Both tools provide citations, with hover-over options to reveal the information source.
Although it’s a new tool, it shows promise, and I’m curious to see its progress.
On testing, the podcast generated by Nouswise was quite impressive. I uploaded Microsoft’s Build 2025 Book of News, and a 16-minute podcast was produced. The hosts were engaging, cracked jokes, and altered their tones to keep a natural flow of conversation.
In my search for tools that could do just that, I stumbled upon Nouswise. What distinguishes NotebookLM from other AI tools is its focus on the sources uploaded to a specific notebook. This approach helps minimize misinformation, eliminating the need to fact-check everything yourself.
Ever since I stumbled upon NotebookLM a while back, I’ve been loyal to it, not bothering to delve into what other tools are available. I did try out a few similar options before settling on NotebookLM, but none of them quite matched up to the experience it offers.
While I appreciate ElevenReader’s podcasts, NotebookLM offers a more comprehensive range of features. After giving all the tools a fair trial, NotebookLM appears to be my preferred choice for now.
The Drive AI is a document management tool powered by AI and reportedly trusted by prestigious institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.
My skepticism about the productivity-enhancing potential of AI vanished when I came across NotebookLM. I decided to put it to the test by uploading a lecture slide from my programming class and asking, “What are the different types of programming methods?” The AI promptly responded with information extracted from the uploaded material and even suggested five relevant questions based on my query.
However, I found Nouswise’s user interface somewhat confusing, and its free plan comes with limitations, such as a 10-question-per-day cap. To upgrade to the Essential plan, which offers unlimited queries, costs $9.99 per month.
Although I’m a staunch NotebookLM supporter, I’m not opposed to switching to a more impressive alternative, should one emerge. Currently, NotebookLM doesn’t face much competition, with most rivals offering just one standout feature (excluding Nouswise).
NotebookLM made its debut in July 2023 and is still relatively new to most users. Despite its recent entry and smaller following, NotebookLM holds its ground in the competitive landscape.
Interestingly, when exploring alternatives to NotebookLM, note-taking tools like Notion, Evernote, or Obsidian often appear as top contenders. However, NotebookLM is not merely a note-taking tool; it aims to enhance your usage of existing apps rather than replace them.
As the competition grows, I decided it was time to give the contenders a fair shot.
It completely shifted my outlook on AI for the better.
