Gemini in Google Drive: Documents that talk

Google Drive is getting a new Audio Overviews feature that uses Gemini AI to convert long PDF documents into short audio summaries. It's designed for multitasking and is currently only available to paid users.

Photo: Google

We all have long documents in our Google Drive. Among them are 80-page industry analyses, extensive meeting minutes, or complex contracts waiting for our attention. A summary via ChatGPT or Gemini seems like a good idea, but what if you could listen to them as a podcast?

That's exactly what Google's latest AI experiment, Gemini, is doing. The new Audio Overviews feature, now available in Google Drive, converts long PDF documents into short audio clips ranging from two to ten minutes in length.

The technology is based on Google’s NotebookLM research tool. When you open a PDF in a web browser, an “Audio Overview” button appears in the top bar. Clicking it opens the Gemini sidebar, which generates an audio summary after a few minutes.

The recording is automatically saved to a new “Audio overviews” folder in your Drive. When it’s ready, you’ll receive an email notification and can listen to it on your smartphone or computer. Google emphasizes that the feature is designed for multitasking. It allows you to “absorb key information” while you’re doing your daily tasks.

However, the feature is not available to everyone. It is currently only available to paid Google Workspace Business Standard/Plus, Enterprise Standard/Plus, and Google One AI Pro subscribers. At launch, it only supports PDF documents in English.