{"slug": "google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews", "title": "Google tests Planning Mode for NotebookLM Video Overviews", "summary": "Google is testing a planning mode for NotebookLM's Video Overviews that would let users review and edit a video's structure before generation begins. The feature, found in the customization menu of the research tool, would pause the process after Gemini drafts a content plan and allow user approval. The planning step aligns with Google's Gemini Omni model and could add editorial oversight for educators and researchers turning dense sources into video explainers.", "body_md": "Google looks set to bring a planning mode to NotebookLM’s Video Overviews, a control that has surfaced inside a recent build of the research tool. The option lives in the customization menu, the same panel, reached via the pencil icon on the Video Overview tile, where users already pick a format, choose a visual style, and write a custom prompt. A new toggle would switch on the planning step.\n\nThe exact layout is still taking shape, but the behavior closely resembles the plan-then-build pattern familiar from coding assistants. Rather than sending a prompt straight to rendering, Gemini would first draft a plan for what the video should cover and pause to let the user edit and approve it before generation begins. For educators, researchers, students, and anyone turning dense sources into watchable explainers, that checkpoint matters: it adds editorial oversight over structure and pacing, and it heads off wasted generations on a clip that misses the point. Today, [NotebookLM](https://www.testingcatalog.com/tag/notebooklm/) hands those calls to Gemini, acting as a silent creative director, with no place for the user to step in.\n\nThe toggle also hints at something larger under the hood. The capability aligns with [Gemini Omni](https://www.testingcatalog.com/google-rolls-out-gemini-omni-ai-for-video-generation-and-editing/), the multimodal model Google introduced at I/O 2026 in May, which now serves as its default video engine and can generate explainer-style clips from a single prompt. Moving Video Overviews from the current Veo-based stack to Omni would fit Google’s push to consolidate text, image, and video into one “anything from anything” system, and a planning step is the kind of control Omni’s editing-first design naturally supports. Such a shift would likely accompany any broader upgrade to the video pipeline.\n\nNo timeline has been attached to the feature, and the planning mode remains in development for now.\n\nTip by [@thomas_gmry](https://x.com/thomas_gmry?ref=testingcatalog.com)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews", "canonical_source": "https://www.testingcatalog.com/google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews/", "published_at": "2026-06-02 22:07:16+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-02 22:31:34.600658+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "generative-ai", "ai-products", "ai-tools", "large-language-models"], "entities": ["Google", "NotebookLM", "Gemini", "Gemini Omni"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-tests-planning-mode-for-notebooklm-video-overviews.jsonld"}}