I gave ChatGPT, Claude, and NotebookLM my entire semester — one was built for the way

ChatGPT, Claude, and NotebookLM are the three names you'll hear repeated over and over again. They can all help with the kinds of things students do every day, from breaking down difficult concepts to summarizing readings and preparing for exams.

However, after using all three throughout an entire semester, I found that one of them fits the way students actually study far better than the others. Close NotebookLM, which is now called Gemini Notebook, is positioned as Google's AI research assistant.

What Happened

However, I don't really use it for "research" in the traditional sense, and most of the time I spend on it is tied directly to my coursework. The foundation of NotebookLM is very different from Claude, ChatGPT, and practically any other AI.

• I see them as three very different tools that happen to overlap in a lot of places!

• At this point, I don't really see them as competing tools anymore, especially in the context of studying.

• NotebookLM is still the one I'd recommend most strongly to students because of how naturally it fits into the way we already study, but ChatGPT and Claude each have strengths that make them worth.

Key Details

This is because it's centered around grounding its responses in the sources you give it. Instead of opening a blank chat and hoping the model has enough context to help, you build a notebook around your own material and then work from.

• That's why figuring out which AI tool works best for you takes some experimenting.

• Other times, you'll need to look beyond them, work through a difficult problem, build something interactive, or just have a concept explained to you in a completely different way.

• While you'll sometimes need to strictly study from your own sources, that won't always be the case.

Why It Matters

For me, that usually means creating a separate notebook for each course and filling it with lecture slides, readings, notes, textbooks, and anything else I accumulate throughout the semester. Once a notebook is populated with resources, I can then essentially do all.

• That makes Claude especially useful when I want to turn what I'm studying into something I can actually interact with rather than just read.

• Instead of asking Claude to generate another set of flashcards, I can give it my lecture material and have it turn that into something genuinely interactive, like a workbook with multiple-choice questions, short-answer exercises.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by XDA as more details emerge