Let’s face it—event planners live in a swirl of notes, decks, emails, spreadsheets, PDFs, and 16 browser tabs open at once. Sound familiar?
Now imagine having a smart assistant that reads everything you upload, remembers it, and answers your questions like it actually knows your event. That’s the magic behind Google’s new tool: NotebookLM.
Tess and I dove into this on a recent episode of Event Tech Pull Up, and let me tell you—we’re hyped. Because this thing could seriously shift how planners research, prep, and make decisions on the fly.
Here’s the deal: NotebookLM lets you upload docs (like your RFPs, contracts, agendas, or meeting notes), and then—using Google’s own language model—you can interact with that content conversationally.
No more scrolling through 87 pages of sponsorship info. You just ask, “What are our deliverables for Gold Sponsors?” and boom—it pulls the answer from the doc you uploaded.
And it’s not just a smarter search box. It’s context-aware. So it remembers what’s in your notebook and can connect the dots between multiple files. That’s huge if you’re juggling vendor proposals, production schedules, and speaker bios all at once.
Here’s why we think this matters for planners:
- You can keep all your event info in one notebook and stop digging through random folders.
- It’s like having a junior assistant who actually reads the documents you send them.
- You can draft emails, create FAQs, or prep agendas based on your own materials—faster and smarter.
- It’s a win for onboarding teammates too. Give them the notebook, and they can ask questions like “What’s our event theme?” or “Where’s the load-in schedule?”
We’re not saying it replaces your brain. But for anyone who’s ever said, “Where did I put that?”—this could be your new best friend.
NotebookLM is still evolving, but the potential is big. It’s currently free (for now), so if you’re curious, set up a notebook and try it with one of your past events. Just watch how fast it pulls answers you forgot you had.
As planners, we’re always juggling 50 things. NotebookLM might just help us drop a few… and still look like rockstars.