Spotify, Amazon to rival Google NotebookLM with AI podcasts, summaries

Spotify has joined Amazon and Google in the AI podcast race with Studio by Spotify Labs, a tool that creates personalised podcast-style audio briefings and experiences

Artificial intelligence is slowly changing the way people consume information, and one of the biggest trends right now is AI-generated podcasts. Instead of reading long articles or manually searching for information, users can now ask AI tools to create podcast-style audio explainers on almost any topic. 

Google was among the first companies to offer podcast-style Audio Overviews in NotebookLM. However, several other platforms have started offering similar features. 

Spotify has announced Studio by Spotify Labs, an experimental app that uses AI agents to generate customised podcast-style briefings, playlists, and more. Similarly, Amazon recently introduced Alexa Podcasts, a feature that allows Alexa+ users to generate AI-powered podcast episodes on topics they are interested in. 

 

Here is how they compare to NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews.

What is Spotify Studio by Spotify Labs?

Spotify Studio is a standalone desktop app that uses AI to create playlists, short podcasts, daily briefings, and audio summaries. The app studies a user’s listening habits across music, podcasts, and audiobooks to generate personalised content. According to Spotify, users can also interact with the system conversationally, meaning they can refine or reshape the generated content through follow-up prompts. 

One of the major additions is its ability to connect with tools like calendars, notes, inboxes, and web browsers. With this, users can ask Spotify to fetch information from different tools and generate context-rich audio experiences. For example, users planning a road trip could ask Studio to create a travel audio briefing with restaurant suggestions, podcast recommendations, and itinerary details. 

Spotify also said that all generated content stays inside the Spotify app and is saved directly to the user’s library.

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How Amazon Alexa Podcasts works

Amazon’s Alexa Podcasts feature takes a slightly different approach. Available for Alexa+ users in the US, the feature allows users to generate short AI-powered podcast episodes on demand. 

Users can ask Alexa about a topic they want to learn about. Alexa then gathers information, creates a structure, and generates an audio episode using AI-created voices. According to Amazon, the system pulls information from publishers and organisations, including Associated Press, Reuters, TIME, Forbes, Politico, Business Insider, and USA Today. Before the final podcast is created, users can customise the topic, duration, and direction of the episode. 

Amazon mentioned that the feature can cover a wide range of topics. Users can generate episodes about trending news, sports highlights, movies, travel destinations, hobbies, or educational topics. 

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NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews

Google’s NotebookLM has been offering AI-generated podcast-style summaries since 2024 through its Audio Overviews feature. The tool allows users to upload articles, notes, research papers, or documents and convert them into conversational audio discussions between two AI-generated hosts. 

Instead of reading text word-for-word, the AI hosts explain concepts conversationally, making complicated topics easier to understand. In 2025, Google expanded the feature to support more than 50 languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, and Konkani.

How these platforms differ

 

While all three tools focus on AI-generated audio, their goals are slightly different.

 

Spotify Studio is more focused on personalised listening and daily lifestyle integration. Amazon Alexa Podcasts is designed around quick, topic-based learning through voice assistants. NotebookLM, meanwhile, is focused more on research, learning, and document summarisation.

 

Additionally, NotebookLM currently has an advantage in multilingual support, as its Audio Overviews feature works in more than 50 languages — something Amazon Alexa Podcasts and Spotify Studio do not yet offer.

 

Apart from Audio Overviews, NotebookLM now also offers AI-generated slide decks and video overviews.

 

Despite the differences, the larger trend is clear: companies are increasingly turning AI into an audio companion that can explain, summarise, and personalise information in podcast form.