Infographics in NotebookLM

NotebookLM has added Nano Banana to its construction toolkit and in addition to much better slides and videos (narrated slides), it now does seriously good infographics.

I uploaded an article on the Taxonomy of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen-AI) Use in Marketing (you can get the pre-print pdf here).

Below is the taxonomy diagram one of the authors shared on LinkedIn.

This is what NotebookLM created from the source, with a prompt that asked for a hand drawn style and information on each of the 8 use areas. I forgot to ask for British English spelling though.

Pretty impressive I think. Especially since it hasn’t been all that long since any and all image generators struggled with words as simple as ‘hello’.

Infographics in Gemini

You can do something similar in Gemini. It just takes a bit more prompting effort. Remember to select the Create Image/Nano Banana option. This is the prompt I used:

Please give me an infographic covering the different approaches to regulation covered in the attached report, with a focus on the differences between the EU, US, and China. Use a minimalistic style and a clean background. Key elements: British English spelling, multi panel structure, consistent style throughout, step-by-step process visualisation, scientific diagram style, 16:9 aspect ratio.

It took a couple of goes to get the prompt right. I used thinking mode as the report is a pretty big one I did via a Gemini Deep Research prompt a couple of months ago comparing AI regulation across different parts of the world. You can take a look at it in NotebookLM if you’re interested.

The initial prompt produced a reasonably good infographic but it was overstuffed with information, didn’t include the US, and the text got weird in a couple of places. It’s definitely better to keep your prompt focused and I have found NotebookLM easier for this. Just remember to hit the pencil icon on the Infographic button, rather than just clicking on it generally.

And a final note, I think Gemini is better at doing complicated stuff than simple. I asked it for an infographic on how to wrap a book as a gift…

Once again, the real world confounds AI.