Mastering Global Trends: How AI Hosts and Visual Research Tools Transform Data into Strategic Insights

01, Feb. 2026 /Mpelembe Media/ — NotebookLM acts as a “super-smart research assistant” and learning companion that helps users navigate and understand complex information across various mediums. By grounding all its responses in user-provided sources—including documents, YouTube transcripts, and websites—it ensures that insights are accurate, reliable, and supported by precise citations.

The platform offers several advanced features to help you compare global perspectives and refine your research:

Conversational AI Hosts: You can transform research into Audio Overviews featuring two AI personalities. These hosts can be guided via Customisable Focus to explore specific themes like economic drivers or social impacts. Specialized formats such as Debate provide contrasting perspectives, while Critique evaluates the quality of your research materials.

Real-time Interaction: Through Interactive Mode (Beta), you can join the conversation by interrupting the hosts to ask follow-up questions or request more detail on a specific trend.

Agentic Deep Research: The Deep Research feature acts as an assistant that browses hundreds of websites to automatically find and import relevant web sources, building a comprehensive foundation for your analysis.

Visual Knowledge Mapping: The mind map feature allows you to visually “connect the dots” between themes and global trends. You can interact with specific nodes in the map to probe deeper into relationships, such as the link between policy and economics.

Professional Application: These tools are designed to enhance decision-making and strategic planning across various departments, including Marketing, Legal, and the C-suite.

Privacy and Control: A core benefit is that user sources remain private; they are not used to train the underlying AI models, ensuring the confidentiality of your research.

By automating the process of sifting through up to 50 different sources, the system allows you to focus on high-level strategy and creative problem-solving.

AI hosts can help you compare different global perspectives by transforming diverse research materials into engaging, conversational Audio Overviews that highlight various viewpoints.

Specifically, you can use the following features and formats to facilitate these comparisons:

1. Utilise Specialized Podcast Formats

The AI hosts offer several formats designed to analyse and compare information:

Debate: This format is specifically designed for comparison, featuring two AI personalities providing contrasting perspectives on complex global issues or emerging technologies to offer a balanced view.

Deep Dive: The hosts engage in a detailed conversational dialogue, exploring your uploaded sources in depth to uncover nuances in different global trends.

Critique: You can use this format to receive a constructive review that evaluates the quality of research materials and feedback on specific trends.

2. Customise the Analysis

You can guide the AI hosts to ensure they are comparing the specific perspectives you are interested in:

Customisable Focus: Before the hosts generate a conversation, you can instruct them to focus on specific themes, such as the social impact of a technology versus its economic drivers.

Interactive Mode: While listening, you can interrupt the hosts in real-time to ask for further details or request different explanations, allowing you to probe deeper into a specific global perspective.

Multilingual Support: Because the technology supports 76 languages, you can generate and listen to these comparisons in your preferred language, making global research more accessible.

3. Build a Comprehensive Knowledge Base

To compare global perspectives effectively, you need a wide range of data. The system allows you to:

Upload up to 50 sources per notebook, including Google Docs, PDFs, YouTube URLs (which the AI transcribes), and web links.

Use “Deep Research”: This feature acts as an agentic assistant that browses hundreds of websites to automatically find and import relevant web sources, building a comprehensive foundation for the AI hosts to discuss.

4. Visualise Relationships

Beyond audio, the AI can generate a visual mind map from your imported sources. This helps you “connect the dots” between global trends by showing the relationships and key themes across all your research materials. You can click on specific nodes in the map to ask the AI hosts questions about that particular topic, using your sources for context.

The Debate format is specifically designed to reveal the complexities of green tech by using two AI personalities to provide contrasting perspectives. This approach allows you to move beyond a single narrative and gain a balanced view of complex global issues related to environmental technology.

By using this format, you can uncover several layers of information:

Economic vs Social Drivers: You can use the Customisable Focus feature to instruct the AI hosts to debate specific themes, such as the economic drivers of green tech versus its social or environmental impact.

Contrasting Research: The AI hosts draw from up to 50 sources you provide—including YouTube transcripts, web links, and PDFs—to highlight differing viewpoints found within those materials.

Probing for Nuance: Through the Interactive Mode, you can “join” the debate by interrupting the hosts to ask for further details or different explanations in real-time, helping you understand the friction points between different green tech strategies.

Agentic Research Insights: If you use the Deep Research feature, the AI can browse hundreds of websites to find diverse viewpoints on green tech, which the hosts can then debate to help you “connect the dots” between global trends.

Ultimately, the Debate format helps you evaluate the quality and contradictions in research materials, transforming dense reports into a conversational exploration of competing ideas.

To interrupt the AI hosts and probe for more information, you can use the Interactive Mode (Beta) feature. This allows you to “join” the conversation in real-time rather than just listening to a pre-generated overview.

Here is how you can engage with the hosts to get more detail:

Tap to Interrupt: You can interrupt the hosts by tapping a specific button while the Audio Overview is playing.

Ask Follow-up Questions: Once you have interrupted the conversation, you can use your voice to ask follow-up questions.

Request Specific Changes: The technology allows you to ask for further details or different explanations immediately as the hosts are speaking.

Guided Focus: If you want more detail on a specific area before the conversation even begins, you can use the Customisable Focus feature to instruct the AI hosts to concentrate on particular themes, such as economic drivers or social impacts.

This interactive capability transforms the Audio Overview from a passive listening experience into a detailed conversational dialogue, allowing you to explore your uploaded sources more deeply.

Yes, you can request specific themes for the AI hosts to explore using the Customisable Focus feature.

According to the sources, this functionality allows you to guide the conversation in the following ways:

Pre-generation Instructions: Before the AI hosts generate the Audio Overview, you can provide specific instructions to focus on particular themes. For instance, you might ask them to concentrate on the social impact of AI or the economic drivers behind green technology.

Real-time Guidance: If the initial overview does not cover a specific detail you are interested in, you can use the Interactive Mode (Beta). By tapping a button to interrupt the hosts, you can join the conversation to ask for further details or different explanations while they are speaking.,

Format Selection: You can also influence the “angle” the hosts take by selecting a specific podcast format. For example, if you want to explore conflicting viewpoints on a theme, you would choose the Debate format, whereas the Critique format would focus on evaluating the quality of the research materials.

Mind Map Interaction: If you have generated a visual mind map, you can select a specific node (a main topic or idea) and ask questions about it in the main chat. This uses your sources for context to help you zoom in on the themes that matter most to you.

By using these features, you can move beyond a general summary and ensure the AI hosts provide a detailed conversational dialogue that is tailored to your specific research goals.,

To focus the AI hosts on economic drivers, you can use several specific features within the system that allow for both pre-planned and real-time guidance of the conversation.

1. Use the “Customisable Focus” Feature

The most direct way to direct the hosts is through the Customisable Focus setting. Before you generate an Audio Overview, you can provide specific instructions to the AI hosts. For example, the sources explicitly state that you can instruct them to focus on themes like the economic drivers of green tech or the social impact of AI.

2. Guide the Research Phase

To ensure the hosts have enough data to discuss economic drivers, you can use the Deep Research feature:

Targeted Search: Initiate a search by typing a specific research question regarding economic trends or drivers.

Build the Knowledge Base: The AI will browse hundreds of websites and generate a report, which you can then import as permanent references into your notebook. This ensures the hosts’ dialogue is grounded in the economic data you require.

3. Interrupt in “Interactive Mode”

If the hosts are already speaking and you want them to pivot toward economic factors, you can use Interactive Mode (Beta).

Real-time Interruption: Tap the button to interrupt the hosts while they are talking.

Voice Probing: Use your voice to ask for further details or different explanations specifically regarding the economic aspects of the topic.

4. Leverage Specialized Formats

The format you choose will change how economic drivers are explored:

Debate: Select this format to have the hosts provide contrasting perspectives, perhaps pitting economic drivers against environmental or social concerns for a balanced view.

Deep Dive: Use this for a detailed conversational dialogue that explores your uploaded economic reports or spreadsheets in depth.

Critique: Choose this to receive a constructive review of the economic data within your research materials.

5. Use the Visual Mind Map

If your notebook contains vast amounts of data, generate a mind map to “connect the dots” between global trends. You can then select a specific node related to an economic topic within the map to instantly ask the hosts questions about that topic in the main chat. This allows you to use your specific sources as context for a deeper economic analysis.

Yes, you can use the Deep Research feature to find and add specific market reports to your notebook. This tool acts as an agentic assistant that can browse hundreds of websites to build a comprehensive knowledge base for your research.

This functionality is explicitly highlighted for its application in marketing and C-suite executive functions, where it is used for market research, competitive analysis, and strategic planning.

To find market reports using this feature, you can follow these steps provided in the sources:

Initiate the Search: Open your notebook and select the Add button in the Sources panel.

Configure for Deep Research: Toggle the source type to Web and ensure the Deep Research toggle is switched on.

Specify Your Query: Type in a specific research question or a complex topic related to the market report you are looking for. The AI may ask you clarifying questions to help refine its research plan.

Review and Import: After a few minutes, the AI will generate a detailed multi-page report citing its findings. You can then view the full list of relevant websites found and import them as permanent references into your notebook.

Once these reports are added, you can further leverage the AI hosts to synthesize the information. For instance, you could use the Brief format to get a concise overview of a dense market report or the Deep Dive format for a detailed conversational dialogue about the findings. You can also generate a visual mind map to see how the data in these market reports connects to other global trends in your notebook.

The visual mind map is designed to help you understand key themes and relationships across all your sources, which includes identifying links between policy and economics if those topics are present in your research materials.

According to the sources, the mind map functions in the following ways to reveal such connections:

Connecting the Dots: The feature is described as a powerful way to visually “connect the dots” between global trends and emerging technologies. If your sources cover government policies and their economic impacts, the mind map will represent these as interconnected nodes and branches.

Theme Analysis: It prompts the AI to analyse your source materials—which can include up to 50 files such as market reports, research papers, and web links—to generate a visual summary of relationships.

Probing Relationships: You can select a specific node (such as a specific policy or economic driver) within the mind map to ask targeted questions in the main chat. This allows you to use your sources for context to understand exactly how a policy might be influencing a particular economic trend.

Building the Data Foundation: To ensure the mind map has enough information to show these links, you can use the Deep Research feature to browse hundreds of websites for market analysis and strategic planning data, which often encompasses both regulatory policy and economic drivers.

While the sources highlight that you can customise the focus of the AI hosts to discuss “economic drivers,” the mind map itself is the primary tool for visually mapping the relationships between any themes found within your personal knowledge base, including the intersection of policy and economics.

The visual mind map is designed to help you understand key themes and relationships across all your sources, which includes identifying links between policy and economics if those topics are present in your research materials.

According to the sources, the mind map functions in the following ways to reveal such connections:

Connecting the Dots: The feature is described as a powerful way to visually “connect the dots” between global trends and emerging technologies. If your sources cover government policies and their economic impacts, the mind map will represent these as interconnected nodes and branches.

Theme Analysis: It prompts the AI to analyse your source materials—which can include up to 50 files such as market reports, research papers, and web links—to generate a visual summary of relationships.

Probing Relationships: You can select a specific node (such as a specific policy or economic driver) within the mind map to ask targeted questions in the main chat. This allows you to use your sources for context to understand exactly how a policy might be influencing a particular economic trend.

Building the Data Foundation: To ensure the mind map has enough information to show these links, you can use the Deep Research feature to browse hundreds of websites for market analysis and strategic planning data, which often encompasses both regulatory policy and economic drivers.

While the sources highlight that you can customise the focus of the AI hosts to discuss “economic drivers,” the mind map itself is the primary tool for visually mapping the relationships between any themes found within your personal knowledge base, including the intersection of policy and economics.

Yes, you can use the Deep Research feature specifically for competitive analysis within marketing. The sources explicitly list marketing as a key domain where this technology is used for market research, campaign development, and competitive analysis.

By using this feature, you can enhance your competitive research in the following ways:

1. Building a Comprehensive Competitor Database

The Deep Research feature acts as an agentic assistant that can browse hundreds of websites to build a detailed knowledge base for you.

Initiate Search: You can enter specific queries regarding your competitors’ latest products, pricing strategies, or market positioning.

Refinement: The AI may ask clarifying questions to ensure the research plan is tailored to your specific competitive needs.

Automated Reporting: It generates a multi-page report citing findings from across the web, which you can then import as permanent references into your notebook.

2. Analysing Competitor Strategies

Once you have imported the data, you can use specialized tools to synthesise and evaluate it:

Visual Mind Mapping: You can generate a mind map to “connect the dots” between your own strategies and those of your competitors, helping you identify themes and relationships across all sources.

The Debate Format: You can use the AI hosts to provide contrasting perspectives on different competitive strategies, helping you see the strengths and weaknesses of various market approaches.

The Critique Format: This allows you to receive a constructive review that evaluates the quality of the market data you have gathered.

3. Improving Strategic Decision-Making

Because the AI automates the process of sifting through information, extracting key insights, and synthesising data, marketing teams are freed from manual document review. This allows you to focus more on high-level strategy and creative problem-solving. Furthermore, because every answer is grounded in your provided sources with precise citations, you can ensure your competitive analysis is based on reliable, verifiable data.

4. Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing

You can create shareable knowledge repositories within the tool. This ensures that your entire marketing team is working from the same “source of truth” regarding competitor research, reducing information silos and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

In the context of competitive analysis, the AI ensures accuracy and reliability by functioning as a source-grounded research assistant. Unlike general AI models that draw from the entire internet, this system is designed to use only the specific “source of truth” you provide to answer questions and generate reports.

According to the sources, accuracy is maintained through the following mechanisms:

1. Core Source Grounding

The AI’s primary method for ensuring accuracy is Source Grounding. This means it only uses the documents, videos, and websites you upload to your notebook to generate its analysis. By strictly limiting its knowledge base to your vetted materials, the AI avoids pulling in irrelevant or unverified data from outside the notebook.

2. Precise Citations for Verifiability

To promote transparency and accountability, the AI provides precise citations for all its answers. These citations link every insight or data point in a competitor report directly back to the specific source material. This allows marketing teams to instantly verify information against the original text, ensuring no details are misrepresented.

3. Agentic Deep Research

To ensure your competitive analysis is comprehensive and based on high-quality data, you can use the Deep Research feature. This tool acts as an agentic assistant that:

Browses hundreds of websites to find the most relevant and current information on competitors.

Generates a detailed report citing these findings.

Imports vetted data: You can review the found websites and choose to import them as “permanent references,” ensuring the AI hosts only discuss data you have approved.

4. Evaluative Formats

The AI offers specialized formats that help you stress-test the accuracy of your research:

Critique: This format provides a constructive review that evaluates the quality of your research materials. It can provide feedback on the trends you have identified, helping you spot weak evidence or outdated competitive data.

Debate: By presenting contrasting perspectives on a competitor’s strategy, the AI helps you see beyond a single narrative, providing a more balanced and accurate view of the market landscape.

5. Maintenance and Data Freshness

The sources emphasize that accuracy is a continuous process. You can maintain an updated and reliable knowledge base by regularly reviewing and updating your notebooks—removing outdated competitor reports and adding new ones. Additionally, you can use Interactive Mode to ask the AI for further details or different explanations in real-time if a specific finding requires more nuance.