First it was ChatGPT, then Agentic AI, and now it’s NotebookLM that’s the next thing to whack on your AI radar. You might be thinking, “This sounds powerful, but I don’t know where to start, and I’m not sure I’m technical enough to use it.” That’s where you’re wrong.
NotebookLM is here to transform your customer success operations without requiring any technical expertise – and we're about to show you exactly how to leverage it for measurable business results.
Customer success is under pressure
There are two fundamentals that ought to be considered off the bat:
- Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are expected to deliver deeply personalized experiences, measurable outcomes, and strategic guidance – all while managing growing customer portfolios.
- More and more CEOs and board members are piling on the pressure for employees to use AI in their daily workflows for fear their organizations will fall behind competitors who are already using automation, insight generation and scalable personalization to drive faster growth.
Customer success teams are under more scrutiny than ever, not just to retain, but to drive revenue. In fact, 78.7% of CS professionals believe CS is a key revenue driver, and 87.2% say retention is a core responsibility. That’s a seismic shift from reactive support to proactive growth.
To a lot of CSMs just getting started on their AI journey, there’s a lot of confusion around how they are, or should be, using it. Most AI tools feel like fancy chatbots that don't actually solve real business problems. Once you’ve got one chatbot, why the need for another, right?
And you’re not alone in figuring this out: less than half of CS professionals (48%) are using generative AI tools like ChatGPT. The real result of this illiteracy means CS teams can feel stuck between unrealistic expectations and inadequate tools.
NotebookLM gives you leverage. Instead of manually digging through decks, email threads, and CRM notes, it pulls the signal from the noise. So you spend less time prepping and more time advising. Less searching, more strategy.
Grace Gupta
Not particularly tech-literate? No problem
We understand that it can feel a little overwhelming. But don’t worry, you’re not being asked to leap from Google Sheets to AI copilots overnight. Think of NotebookLM as an intuitive runway to an AI-proofed future career.
But to start with, here are a few common questions lots of people have:
- “What is NotebookLM exactly? Is it even available to me? Do I need IT to set it up?”
- “I’m not a data scientist... am I supposed to learn prompt engineering too?”
- “How do I actually fit this into my day-to-day when I already have too much to do?”
What is NotebookLM?
A large language model (LLM) is a type of AI algorithm that is pre-trained on vast amounts of data. And Google’s NotebookLM does just this. At its core, it’s an AI research assistant that analyzes your uploaded documents, files or pasted text, and lets you interact with them through conversation.
How NotebookLM works:
- Upload your documents to create a personalized knowledge base
- The AI processes and learns from all your uploaded content
- Ask questions or request analysis based on your materials
- Receive detailed responses with citations linking back to original sources
NotebookLM essentially transforms static documents into an interactive research “notebook” where you can have informed conversations about your content. For customer success teams juggling multiple accounts, product docs, and customer feedback, it's like having an assistant who instantly knows everything about your customers and can answer questions on the spot.
It’s important to recognize that not to replace the human element, but to amplify the strategic capacity of CSMs. NotebookLM unlocks richer insights, streamlines grunt work, and enables proactive, precision-tailored engagement.
Setting up NotebookLM
NotebookLM (and tools like it) are designed to be used by humans, not engineers. You don’t need to understand Python, you simply need to have to log in using your Google account.
Grace Gupta
Make NotebookLM work for you
You don’t need a roadmap or permission to get started, just one or two customer files. Start by picking one account you know well. Upload a few core documents – maybe an onboarding deck, a success plan, and an email thread. Then ask a question you’d normally spend 30 minutes trying to answer, like:
- “What are this customer’s top concerns?”
- “What blockers have come up since onboarding?”
- “What’s the tone of our recent conversations?”
With just a few prompts, you’ll start to see the potential.
Of course, good input is key here. Try to avoid dumping everything in at once. If you want a better answer, present clean, relevant content leads. You can organize docs by customer or initiative, label them clearly, and build from there. Think of it like training a teammate – the clearer your context, the smarter the output.
How LLMs can future-proof the career of the modern CSM
Solving the "more with more" puzzle
Due to the hyper-commercial nature of the world today, the average customer has an abundance of products at their fingertips. Unless you have the market share for your subscription product, it’s up to businesses to produce a product that stands out from the competition. This means that CSMs need to generate more value than ever.
Rather than sales bringing in new accounts, the focus in 2025 has shifted to retention. And value is the central piece of that puzzle. This is reflected in broader trends: 76.8% of CS professionals now focus on value realization, and 78% prioritize product adoption. It's no longer about just keeping customers; it’s about proving value at every step.
LLMs offer operational leverage, freeing up time, generating insights, and enabling more strategic conversations. The days of playing defense with reactive support are over.
Evolving toward value assurance
The era of conflating customer success with customer support is over. Customer success is a value engine. And NotebookLM? It helps translate product usage and customer engagement into customer-centric outcomes and impact. This allows you to go well beyond simply tracking logins and instead allows you to connect the dots between behavior and business results.
Future-proofing the CSM role
You heard it here first: AI won't replace CSMs. But CSMs who wield AI will outperform those who don't. Data literacy, adaptability, and AI fluency are emerging must-haves. The CSMs thriving 5–10 years from now will be the ones who started experimenting today.
You’re sitting on a customer intelligence goldmine
Most CS teams are sitting on more insight than they realize, buried in call transcripts, onboarding decks, Slack or Teams threads, CRM notes, and email chains. The problem? It’s scattered, siloed, and hard to use in the moment that matters.
NotebookLM can turn that chaos into clarity. By pulling all your customer materials into one searchable, conversational workspace, you get a clear view not just of what happened, but why. You can ramp up on an account in minutes, identify key moments in the journey, and build strategies rooted in real customer context, not guesswork.
This kind of synthesis is a game changer for renewals, QBRs, and expansion planning. You’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting from insight.
Tailored engagement without the templates
Most CSMs want to personalize their touchpoints… but who seriously has the time? NotebookLM helps you do it in minutes, not hours. Whether you're prepping for a quarterly business review (QBR) or drafting a quick check-in, it can help you align every message with the customer's actual goals, usage patterns, and sentiment trends.
Say goodbye to generic slide decks. Instead, get your new pal NotebookLM to build a narrative around a customer's KPIs or pull key themes from your last three meetings. The result? Touchpoints that feel thoughtful, relevant, and strategic – not automated.
Identify churn risk signals fast
The warning signs of churn are often subtle. A dip in engagement, a shift in tone, or maybe long stretches of silence. You don’t always catch them, of course, you’re only human! You’re busy.
The top predictors of churn today? 65.6% of teams track product usage data, 57.2% look at low engagement, and 47.8% use customer health scores. With NotebookLM, you can surface those insights in seconds, not spreadsheets.
Analyzing sentiment, frequency, and content across your resources can help surface early signs of risk. Ask NotebookLM, “Has the tone of this customer changed in the last month?” or, “What potential blockers are showing up across our emails and meetings?”
All of a sudden, you're staying ahead of escalations, rather than merely reacting to them.
Neelu Shaikh
Leading the AI shift
This isn’t just about adopting a tool, it’s about nudging your team into a new way of working. If you’re a CS leader, that means setting expectations, encouraging experimentation, and sharing wins early and often.
No one expects you to be an expert on day one. Create a safe space for trying things out. Invite team members to run small experiments – like using NotebookLM to prep for a tricky customer call – and then share what worked. When others see real examples, adoption follows naturally.
Ethics matter
We’re all figuring out the balance of AI and human judgment. But a few things are non-negotiable: be clear when AI is involved in your process. Don’t use customer data without consent. Make sure your practices align with privacy laws like GDPR and the AI Act.
Trust is still your most valuable asset. AI should support it, not threaten it.
Your first few weeks with NotebookLM
You don’t need to overhaul your workflow overnight. Try a phased approach.
Week 1:
- Sign up for NotebookLM (it's free, no IT approval needed)
- Upload one customer's worth of materials
- Ask three basic questions about their business goals
Week 2:
- Add meeting transcripts and email threads
- Practice generating talking points for upcoming calls
- Share one insight with your team that you discovered through AI
Week 3:
- Expand to 3-5 customers in your portfolio
- Create templates for common analysis tasks
- Start tracking time saved vs. insights gained
Month 2+
- Build customer intelligence workflows
- Train teammates on your successful use cases
- Become the go-to AI champion in your organization
NotebookLM for customer success: Final thoughts
Customer success is evolving, with just under half (49%) of CS teams now fully owning expansion revenue like upsells and renewals. NotebookLM can help you surface key drivers of expansion and turn every conversation into a growth opportunity.
See, it doesn’t remove the need for relationships, empathy, or judgment. But it makes it easier to act on insight, faster.
The most impactful CSMs in the coming years won’t be the ones who resist these tools – they’ll be the ones who know how to combine them with deep customer understanding and human connection.
If you’re curious, if you’re willing to learn by doing, you’re already ahead.
If you're serious about scaling strategic engagement, automating the busywork, and future-proofing your CSM toolkit, don’t just read about it – be where the next wave is happening.
Join us at the AI for Customer Support Summit in Boston.
Connect with trailblazing CS leaders, explore real AI use cases, and get practical insight into how tools like NotebookLM, ChatGPT, and automation frameworks are reshaping the way we serve customers.
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