
At first glance, NotebookLM, Audio Overviews and Illuminate all seem very similar. They all promise to make dense material easier to digest and all are powered by Gemini 3.0.
The problem is, all of these AI audio tools seem very similar at first glace, yet they are designed for very different workflows. One is a smart research notebook. One turns your documents into a podcast-style explainer. And one creates listening-first audio summaries for academic papers.