Criterion Consensus Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)
CategoryAI Research ToolsAI Research Tools
In one sentenceAn AI search engine that answers questions using peer-reviewed research, with Deep Search for literature-review style reports.Google's source-grounded research notebook, renamed from NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook in July 2026.
Problem it solvesFinding reliable, evidence-based answers in scientific literature is hard without specialised search skills.Making sense of many long documents is slow, and general chatbots may answer from outside your material.
Free planYesYes
Developer APIYes — docsNo
Open sourceNoNo
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, iOS, Android, Gemini app
Pricing (summary)Free plan with 10 Pro messages and 3 Deep Searches per month. Pro (15 Deep Searches), Deep (200 Deep Searches) and per-seat Team plans are sold monthly or annually; Enterprise is custom. Exact prices were not readable from the official pricing page.
Checked 2026-10-19		Free with a Google account (100 notebooks, 50 sources each). Higher limits come with Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscriptions; Google's plan page did not display prices in the fetched version, so check Google One for current amounts.
Checked 2026-10-19
Strengths
  • Focus on peer-reviewed evidence
  • Simple question-based interface
  • Student pricing
  • Strong grounding in user-provided sources
  • Free tier is usable for real projects
  • Integrated with Google's Gemini ecosystem
Limitations
  • Paid plan prices not visible in the official sources fetched
  • Deep Search capped per month
  • Not a full systematic-review tool
  • Free tier capped at 100 notebooks and 50 sources per notebook
  • Code execution limited to higher paid tiers at launch
  • Name change may cause confusion with notebooks inside the Gemini app