Turn Research Into Engaging Podcasts With Two Free AI Tools
Imagine turning your study materials into a podcast to listen to at your desk – or while heading to your next assignment.
Two of my favorite AI tools — Gemini Notebook and the Gemini model – let you do just that.
They’re free, easy to use (though capabilities and limits differ by plan), and can create custom podcasts – called Audio Overviews – in minutes.
And these AI-generated podcasts are impressive!
Here’s everything you need to know about them, from how they help with learning and retention to how to create your own using Gemini Notebook or Gemini Deep Research (plus when to choose one over the other).
What to expect from Audio Overviews
Audio Overviews turn deep dives into your sources — whether you upload them or let AI find them online — into conversations between two AI hosts.
Don’t roll your eyes yet: they’re surprisingly charming and human-like! You almost forget you’re not listening to real people.
Best of all, no topic is off-limits. Need a podcast on the endoscopic endonasal anatomy of the cavernous sinus? No problem!
Add your sources, hit Generate, wait a few minutes — and press play.
When your podcast is ready, you can download it to listen on the go and share it via a public link.
Practical uses for language specialists
Audio Overviews are more than just a neat feature — they’re a smart way to absorb information quickly and effectively. Here’s how they can boost your interpreting prep and language learning.
Vocabulary building
Because they pull from relevant sources, Audio Overviews naturally include common terms associated with a topic, making them a handy tool for learning and retaining vocabulary.
You can even steer the conversation toward vocabulary exploration, as I did with an Audio Overview about Gaudí I generated on Gemini Notebook. Here’s the prompt I used:
“Have a conversation in Intermediate level Spanish discussing the more advanced Spanish vocabulary words in these texts. The hosts should ONLY speak Spanish.”
The result? A forty-two-minute podcast where the hosts dive into context-specific terms — all in Spanish.
Explore collocations and natural language
When prepping for an interpreting assignment, we often focus on the technical terminology and forget how to talk about the topic naturally. While the specialized terms are front and center in our minds, everyday words and expressions can sink deep underneath.
Audio Overviews bring those back to the surface, helping us balance technical vocabulary with simple, fluent language.
Pronunciation and listening practice
Listening to keywords and phrases in natural, conversational speech can sharpen your ear and improve your pronunciation, especially since you can adjust the playback speed to match your pace.
⚠️ AI pronunciation can still be wrong. It’s always useful to pair AI pronunciation with authentic speech sources for language learning.
Making dense material accessible
Audio Overviews also make dense content easy to consume. You can turn any collection of sources, no matter how dry, into an interesting conversation. Yes, even dense legal and medical texts. 😉
Comprehension and retention
Even when you’ve done your homework and read all the slides and PDFs, Audio Overviews are still a great way to review and solidify your understanding and retention.
You can listen on your way to an interpreting assignment — or while getting ready at home.
Audio Overviews in Gemini Notebook vs the Gemini chatbot
Both Gemini Notebook and Gemini offer Audio Overviews, but they do so in slightly different ways.
Gemini Notebook: Create Audio Overviews based on up to multilple files you provide — including PDFs, Google Docs, and even audio. You can upload content in multiple languages. Choose your preferred Output Language in Gemini Notebook settings before generating the Audio Overview.
Gemini: Unlike Gemini Notebook, Gemini doesn’t require you to upload sources. Simply enter a topic, and it generates a podcast-style conversation using its own research. It pulls information from hundreds of websites, summarizing it through multi-step analysis.
Which to choose?
Gemini Notebook is ideal if you need support for multiple languages or want more control over the sources and conversation’s focus.
Gemini is perfect for quickly creating Audio Overviews in English without uploading your own sources.
Audio Overviews in Gemini Notebook
To get started, go to Gemini Notebook, log in with your Google account, and add your sources. (Gemini Notebook is available on the web and through its iOS and Android apps; see my deep dive article for setup instructions.)
You can now download Audio Overviews for offline playback directly in the mobile app.
Create a podcast in English
Add your source(s), then click the Generate button in the Audio Overview section within the Studio panel on the right.
Use Gemini Notebook’s Audio Overview to create custom podcasts from your study materials.
Create a podcast in other languages
Click the Customize button in the Audio Overview section of the Studio panel on the right.
Add the following prompt to focus the discussion and get the hosts to speak another language:
"Create a conversation in [LANGUAGE] about [TOPIC]. The hosts should ONLY speak [LANGUAGE].
Special Instructions:
This episode will ONLY be in [LANGUAGE]. All discussions, interviews, and commentary must be conducted in [LANGUAGE] for the entire duration of the episode.
No English or other languages should be used, except when absolutely necessary to clarify a term or concept unique to a specific language.”
Click Generate.
(Based on a prompt by Webwizwork.)
Share your Audio Overview:
Click the share icon in the audio player. Switch the toggle to “Public access” and click to copy the share link.
Easily share your Gemini Notebook Audio Overview using a public link from the audio player.
Interactive Audio Overviews
Google introduced the ability to join the Audio Overview and talk directly to the AI hosts. You can interrupt, ask a question, request clarification, and then have the hosts resume the discussion.
For interpreters and language learners, this opens up a much more interesting use case than passive listening.
You could:
ask for a concept to be explained more simply
ask what a particular term means
request another example
test your understanding
steer the discussion toward terminology you care about
⚠️ The downside? Google’s current help documentation says interactive mode is still English-only.
Download or adjust the playback speed
Click the three dots next to the share icon. Select “Change playback speed” to adjust the speed or choose “Download” to save the file to your computer.
Plus, Google now lets users generate different lengths, including shorter highlight-style versions and fuller discussions. In August 2025, it explicitly expanded non-English Audio Overviews to full length while retaining shorter options.
Audio Overviews in Gemini
To get started, go to https://gemini.google.com/ or download the iOS or Android app.
Create a podcast:
From the model picker, select Deep Research. Enter your prompt (see example below). Edit the research plan if needed, then wait for Gemini to complete the Deep Research.
Then, click the sound wave icon at the top of the Deep Research panel to generate your Audio Overview.
Click the sound wave icon in Gemini to generate an Audio Overview from your AI research.
Here’s an example of my Deep Research results and the resulting podcast.
And it’s not just podcasts…
Gemini Notebook can now turn the same source collection into much more than audio. Current Studio outputs include:
Audio Overviews
Video Overviews (expanded to 80+ languages in 2025)
Slide Decks
Infographics
source-grounded Q&A
Other research/study outputs
For an interpreting assignment, the same notebook could become an Audio Overview for you to listen to on the go, an infographic for terminology relationships, a slide deck for structured review, or even a Video Overview for visual concepts.
First published in May 2025. Revised in September 2026.