Reimagine Your Writing: AI Workshop with Steven Johnson, April 1st

Bestselling author and editorial director of Google’s NotebookLM will show you how AI has transformed his writing process — and how it could transform yours

TL;DR: Join us on April 1st at 5pm ET for an exclusive virtual workshop with Steven Johnson, Editorial Director of NotebookLM at Google Labs. He’ll demo NotebookLM — an AI tool built by a writer for writers — and share how he uses it in his own creative process. Steven will also answer your AI questions. This event is only for paying members. If you’re on the free tier, be sure to upgrade now to participate.

You may know

Steven Johnson

as the bestselling author of books like Extra Life, The Ghost Map, and Where Good Ideas Come From. Or maybe you’ve read his longform journalism in the New York Times Magazine. Perhaps you’ve seen him on TV, heard him on a podcast, or listened to the audio documentary he made with the Next Big Idea.

What you may not know is that a few years ago, Steven received a surprising invitation. Some folks at Google Labs, the tech giant’s internal incubator for novel projects, had heard about Steven’s lifelong fascination with “tools for thought” — software designed to organize, remix, and augment research and ideation — and they wanted his help to build one of their own.

What would we get, they asked, if we reimagined note-taking software from the ground up with an AI language model at its core?

The answer? NotebookLM.

NotebookLM is a one-of-a-kind source-grounded AI research assistant. It allows you to upload documents — or “sources” in NotebookLM parlance (these could be research materials, notes, drafts, or even whole books) — and have an open-ended conversation with them.

“It is as if you are giving the AI instant expertise in whatever domain you happen to be working in,” says Steven, who now works full-time as NotebookLM’s editorial director.

Best of all, that conversation is “grounded” in your sources, meaning NotebookLM doesn’t draw on its training data or outside information and, as a result, is far less susceptible to hallucinations than rival chatbots.

What’s especially cool about NotebookLM — and why we’re big fans here at Author Insider — is that it was built by a writer for writers. At every step in the product’s development, Steven has been asking, How can we make this tool even more useful to writers like me? We thought it’d be illuminating to have Steven share the answers with you.

So on April 1st at 2pm PT / 5pm ET, Steven will join us virtually for a virtual workshop where he’ll walk us through NotebookLM, demonstrate how he’s using it to deepen his thinking and accelerate his writing process, and then he’ll answer any questions you may have about NotebookLM or AI in general.

This event is only open to paid subscribers. If you’d like to attend but are currently a free subscriber, please upgrade your subscription now: