Though I, too, had that initial resistance to AI that so many people seem to have nowadays, I eventually realized that trying to escape it would only leave me behind. So, I began testing different AI tools to see which ones could genuinely integrate into my workflow, both for school and work. Since the release of arguably the most famous AI chatbot, ChatGPT, only two things in the AI world have truly stood out to me: NotebookLM and AI browsers.

Another thing I’ve been doing since I started using NotebookLM is pairing it with other tools I rely on, both AI-powered and ones without a single AI feature (which is, frankly, rare nowadays). I’ve realized that while NotebookLM is impressive on its own, combining it with other tools takes its capabilities to the next level. Naturally, my next step was pairing NotebookLM with AI browsers. The result has been unlike any pairing I’ve made before and makes for the perfect personal assistant.

There’s really no prior setup required

You just need the right browser

If you’ve read my previous coverage of pairing NotebookLM with other tools, you might have noticed that it sometimes seems like a lot of work. I often use different Chrome extensions to speed up my workflow, and there’s at least some level of back-and-forth required. When pairing NotebookLM with an AI browser, there’s practically no prior setup required.

This is because AI browsers aren’t really tools — they’re full-fledged browsers. You need to use NotebookLM in a browser (unless you’re using its wildly underwhelming mobile app), so all you really need to do here is use NotebookLM in an AI browser instead of a standard one.

At the time of writing, you have a bunch of AI browsers to choose from. No matter which one you decide to choose, the only thing you need to ensure is that it has agentic capabilities. If you aren’t familiar with agentic AI, it’s essentially AI that goes beyond simply responding to prompts and actually takes action on your behalf. It can browse the web, click around, open new tabs, and automate a lot of the boring tasks you perform daily.

Though I haven’t tried every AI browser there is just yet, the ones that I have tried and that do have agentic capabilities are Perplexity’s Comet, ChatGPT Atlas, and Opera’s Neon. Out of all of them, I personally think Neon handles agentic tasks best.

However, it is a subscription-based product, and you still need to join a waitlist to get access, so it’s not the most convenient option for everyone. I tested Norton’s Neo recently, and it’s one example of a browser that doesn’t have agentic capabilities. While it does offer some AI features, it doesn’t actually take actions on your behalf, so it doesn’t fit into this specific workflow.

NotebookLM studies my routine, and AI schedules around it

Saves me the manual time-blocking

One of the first AI tools I started using was Reclaim, a calendar scheduling tool designed to handle all your calendar management for you. Once you set your working hours and the tasks you need to accomplish, Reclaim works around your task list and time-blocks your calendar for each task.

It takes various factors into account, including deadlines, priority, and any conflicting commitments. It’s an incredible tool, but over time, I started noticing where it falls short. While it did what it’s meant to do well, I wanted something that could understand my routine on a deeper level, not just based on tasks I fed into it. I wanted a tool that could look at my previous calendar data, identify patterns, and then distribute my work based on what actually works for me, not what should work on paper.

To date, I haven’t found a tool that does that automatically. However, I realized NotebookLM can handle the first half of that process — analyze my previous data and identify patterns. I can then tell it the tasks I need to do, along with their priority and deadlines (basically all the information I’d normally give Reclaim), and NotebookLM can suggest a realistic weekly structure that aligns with how I naturally work.

From there, I simply copy the entire schedule and use the AI browser’s agentic capabilities to handle the time-blocking. I’ve asked Comet to book countless calls for me, so I know this is a task AI can handle flawlessly. Keep in mind that AI often takes longer than I would to time-block everything manually.

However, it can do it in the background while I continue working, so the time trade-off doesn’t actually matter. By the time I look back at my calendar, everything is neatly scheduled for me.

The combination can also handle my study planning

A comprehensive checklist within minutes

When I say scheduling, I don’t just mean time-blocking tasks on my Google Calendar. I’ve also used this combination to add study plans I’ve generated with NotebookLM and agentic AI’s help to Notion, which is what I use to plan out every aspect of my life. For instance, say I have a midterm coming up in a few days.

What I like to do is upload my lecture slides that I’ll be tested on, and then ask NotebookLM to come up with a checklist of every single thing I need to know. Once it does, I share the entire checklist with the agentic AI and ask it to add it to my Notion database. I also specifically ask it to format the checklist. The screenshot of a study plan it formatted right below the header of this section says it all.

Sure, it’s not too fancy and is pretty simple, but it’s still clean and structured. Most importantly, all I need to do here is type two fairly simple prompts, and everything’s handled automatically. And for someone juggling multiple courses and deadlines, that alone is a win.

And then there’s the totally random stuff I use it for

The possibilities are endless

I’ve used NotebookLM for some pretty bizarre (and unconventional) tasks before that have absolutely nothing to do with work or college. So, of course, there was simply no way I wouldn’t use it for such tasks. While I have countless examples, one thing I’ve been doing a lot lately is using NotebookLM to create Spotify playlists.

As weird as it sounds, it does a great job. I achieve this by uploading months’ worth of my listening history. Now, NotebookLM can only give me a list of the tracks I can include in a playlist. I still need to end up adding all the tracks to a playlist. Given that sometimes the playlists NotebookLM suggests can lean toward the longer side (like an 84-track playlist the tool curated earlier today), that can become time-consuming.

And it’s not just about the time — it’s simply a monotonous task that can easily be automated. So, I simply copy the playlist and drop it into an AI browser, ask it to add everything into a new Spotify playlist, and let it take over.

I can’t imagine using NotebookLM without an AI browser now

NotebookLM is already great on its own, but the second you pair it with an AI browser, everything changes. It takes the whole AI-assistant experience to another level entirely. After using this duo, going back to using NotebookLM without an AI browser just feels like a massive downgrade.