Google Chrome Audio Summary Immediately Get AI Intelligence

Illustration of Google Chrome (photo: x @HDblog)

JAKARTA - Google Chrome for Android is likely to soon feature a NotebookLM-style audio summary feature. This feature is reportedly offering a summary of podcast-style conversations from all existing articles on the Discover Feed Chrome. The AI playback screen is equipped with a play button/twisted, 10 seconds forward or backward, timeline, and more.

Chrome currently has a practical feature called "Listen to this page" which reads web pages while users are busy with other tasks. This feature is very useful for long news articles that take time to read.

Basically, this feature only uses a simple text-to-speech model that reads visible text. Now, Google seems to want to improve this feature by integrating a NotebookLM-style audio summary into Chrome.

NotebookLM-style Audio Summary On Google Chrome

The feature, called "Listen to the feed", is reportedly becoming available to users running Chrome Canary, as found by the Leopeva64 browser expert on X. This feature was first discovered in June. This feature appears in the Chrome app for Android on a new home screen/tab, providing a summary of podcast-style fast conversations from content on Discover Feed.

The voice and style of discussion used is reportedly similar to the implementation of NotebookLM, showing that Google is using the same technology to support this new Chrome feature.

Not Widely Available

When tapping the "Listen to the feed" button, Chrome takes a few seconds to generate AI playback. It opens the smallest-state media player with an Audio Overview that is being played. The player will expand it, featuring the title of the article, the website of the source, and the timeline.

There is a button to jump forward or back 10 seconds, switch to the next article or before, as well as the play button. This media player reportedly customizes with the user device theme.

This feature does not appear to be widely available, even for Chrome Canary users. This shows that the feature is still in the testing phase with limited number of users. This feature is expected to roll out towards the end of the year, according to Google's plan.