Google offers up a ton of AI tools, and if you're trying to learn more about something or study, NotebookLM might be your first thought. It's powerful, it's more grounded in truth since it only uses the sources you provide it, and it can transform your sources into different outputs like podcasts and mind maps. But what if you don't have sources on the subject you want to learn, or don't need the bells and whistles of NotebookLM? Well, Google has an AI tool just for that, too. It's called Learn About.
Learn About is an AI experiment that does exactly what you think it does. It's a conversational learning tool that lets you to learn about new topics in a streamlined and easy way. Like NotebookLM, you can upload a document and Learn About will break it down for you. Unlike NotebookLM, you can just type the subject you want to learn into the search box, and it'll get to work. It's not limited to the sources you provide.
Learn About's output gives you a streamlined list of different pieces of information. It almost has a Wikipedia vibe. As you'd expect, you'll get blocks of text with relevant information and photos, but there will also be interactive lists that you can click through to get additional details. You'll see sections for "building your vocabulary" on the particular subject. If it finds a relevant YouTube video, it can also appear in the mix.
If you're just starting out learning about a subject, you likely don't know what you don't know. Learn About recognizes this and will also have sections that pose questions you might not have thought to ask for deeper learning. Learn About can also show common misconceptions about your subject. When trying out the tool, I wanted to know more about the Great Sphinx, and it showed the misconception that the Sphinx's nose was shot off by Napoleon's soldiers, with a correction that it was likely damaged centuries before Napoleon's time. As with most pieces of information that Learn About provides, it will also give you the sources where it got that information.
At the bottom of each section, Learn About encourages deeper learning by offering three buttons to simplify the subject matter, go deeper into it or display images.
To help you keep track of what you've learned, there's a section on the left side of the screen that will show you "the big picture" of your subject matter, but also all of the items you clicked within the interactive lists that it provided, so you can dive back in if you need a refresher. From my time with it, this was the only element that appeared in this section as I clicked through.
Those of you looking for a dedicated app for Learn About may be a bit disappointed, but you shouldn't be. Unlike NotebookLM, Learn About is all about consuming the content it provides and not creating something new, like a Video Overview of your sources. It can be easily accessed by a mobile browser, and it scales fine to smaller displays.
Just like nearly everything Google does, your conversation history should be stored for easy access when you return, but this wasn't the case when I tried to access my Sphinx conversation from my phone. And when I refreshed the page on my computer browser, the conversation was gone. While that's frustrating, this is still considered an experiment as of right now. Another limitation that I ran into was when trying to access Learn About from my iPad Pro. On both Chrome and Brave, I was greeted with a pop-up stating that Learn About isn't currently supported on tablet devices, but that wasn't the case when I tried it on the Safari browser.
Despite the issues I ran into, there's a lot to like about Learn About. It's not overly complicated, and it doesn't try to be anything it's not. It's a streamlined way of learning subjects conversationally, which could be great for students or anyone curious about grasping something new.