Two tools now do the thing students most want from AI: upload your own notes and ask them questions, with answers grounded in what you uploaded rather than the open internet. Google's NotebookLM is one. A shareable study chatbot, the kind Cortexvia builds, is the other.
They overlap on the core job and differ sharply on what happens after. This is an honest comparison, including the cases where you should use the free personal tool and not us.
Where they are the same
Both let you upload documents, add web pages, and, in both cases, pull in YouTube videos. Both answer questions from those sources. Both tell you when a question is outside what you uploaded, which is the property that makes either one usable for revision, where a confident wrong answer is worse than none.
For a student sitting alone with a semester of notes, either tool covers the core method: question your notes instead of rereading them. The study notes guide describes that method and applies to both.
Where NotebookLM is the better choice
You are the only user. If the notebook never needs to leave your account, a personal tool is the simpler path.
Cost. NotebookLM is free for personal use. Cortexvia has a free plan, but heavy solo use across many subjects is where a paid Student plan starts to matter.
Research features. A tool built for one person working through sources deeply has features aimed at that, such as generated study aids and audio summaries. If those are what you want, use them.
Where a shareable chatbot is the better choice
Your class needs it too. A Cortexvia chatbot has a hosted page and a public link. Post it in the group chat and everyone revises from the same material without creating accounts. One person maintains the sources; thirty people question them.
It has to live on a website. A course site, a club page, a department wiki, a tutor's site. The same snippet that puts a chatbot on a business website embeds a notes chatbot anywhere a script tag is allowed. The platform guides show where.
It should keep working for the next batch. A study chatbot for a course, built once by a teaching assistant or a senior, keeps answering next year's students. A notebook in one graduate's account does not.
Lectures and documents together, for everyone. Both tools handle YouTube; the difference is that the shared chatbot lets the whole cohort ask the recording questions from one link.
The practical decision
- Revising alone, no website, no sharing: use NotebookLM.
- Revising with a group, or publishing a study bot for a course or club: use a shareable chatbot.
- Both: research in the notebook, publish the finished study chatbot for the class. Plenty of students do exactly this, and the tools are not in conflict.
Setting up the shared version
- Combine one subject's notes, slides, and past papers into a document or two.
- Create a chatbot, upload the files, paste the lecture links.
- Write a welcome message that says what it covers.
- Ask it three questions you know the answers to, in different words from your notes.
- Share the hosted link, or embed it on a site.
The NotebookLM alternative page has the short version and the students page has the plan limits.
Frequently asked questions
Can classmates use the shared chatbot without signing up? Yes. Anyone with the link can ask questions. Only the person managing the sources signs in.
Is the answer quality the same? On grounded questions from your own notes, both are accurate and both admit gaps. Quality is decided far more by what you upload than by the tool.
Can I export my notes chatbot? Your sources are your own files and links; nothing is locked in. Delete the chatbot and nothing is lost but the chatbot.