NotebookLM may finally get a customization feature your research docs are begging for

Google’s NotebookLM is powerful, but it hasn’t exactly been exciting to look at. If you juggle multiple notebooks, they can start blending together into a sea of identical tiles. That could be about to change.

A newly spotted, albeit unreleased, feature suggests NotebookLM is preparing to inject some personality into notebooks, giving users visual ways to tell projects apart without digging through titles.

Over the past year, Google has steadily expanded its capabilities with Audio Overviews, collaborative notebooks, and advanced summarization tools. But visually, notebooks have stayed fairly plain, which can slow things down when you’re switching between classes, work projects, or deep research topics.

That’s the gap Google now appears ready to address. According to an X post by leaker TestingCatalog, NotebookLM is experimenting with a banner image designed to help users distinguish notebooks faster.

A screenshot shared by TestingCatalog shows a banner customization feature that allows users to add a header graphic to each notebook. In practice, that could turn a plain research folder into something instantly recognizable, like a lecture notebook with a course banner, a product research hub with branding, or even a travel planner with destination imagery.

At the moment, opening NotebookLM is like looking through a filing cabinet full of manila folders. It works, but it is very plain. You have to depend on filenames and your memory to find the right project.

For now, these customization features are still being tested, and there is no set date for their release. However, NotebookLM has been getting updates quickly, like the new option to refine and change slides with a prompt, so visual personalization might arrive soon.