Gemini app expands Connected Apps, folding NotebookLM in as 'Gemini Notebook'

Google is widening the Gemini app's Connected Apps feature, letting users pull third-party work tools, creative services and everyday consumer apps into a Gemini conversation. The headline addition is NotebookLM, now called Gemini Notebook, which becomes a connected app inside chat.

In practice, users can create and manage notebooks, add sources and run queries against them without leaving Gemini. That turns NotebookLM's grounded research workspace into a tool Gemini can call, rather than a separate destination. Third-party connections follow the same pattern: Gemini acts as the front door and invokes outside services on the user's behalf.

The rename signals consolidation. Google has a habit of shipping many standalone AI products, and folding NotebookLM under the Gemini brand mirrors moves by OpenAI, which merged chat and work experiences, and Microsoft, which unified Copilot Chat, Cowork, Autopilot and Code this week. Assistant platforms are converging on a single surface that orchestrates many tools.

What to watch: whether existing NotebookLM users see feature loss or a forced migration, how permissions work when Gemini acts on third-party accounts, and whether Gemini 4 Carbon powers these connected workflows. The sources here are developer blog summaries, so details on rollout regions and plan tiers are still thin.