NotebookLM has always been Google's most source-honest AI tool. Every answer in chat comes with inline citations that jump you to the exact passage in your uploaded documents. But there was always a blind spot: the Studio. Generate an Audio Overview, a study guide, or a briefing doc, and you had no idea which prompt drove it or which of your forty uploaded sources actually made it into the synthesis. If the output was off, your only move was to regenerate and hope. That changes now.
The black box cracks open
Google has rolled out two new features for NotebookLM: "View prompt and sources" and "Iterate." Together, they let you review the exact prompts and sources used to generate any piece of Studio content, adjust them, and regenerate the output. The announcement landed with a characteristically blunt tagline: "No more guessing."
To access it, click the three-dot menu on any generated artifact and select "View prompt and sources." A window appears showing the original prompt and the specific sources used to build that piece of content. That last part is the key distinction: you see the exact formula, prompts plus sources, used to make each artifact, not just the full list of everything in your notebook. It is the difference between knowing what is in your pantry and knowing what ended up on the plate.
Iterate: a testbed, not a one-shot generator
Transparency alone would be a read-only feature. The "Iterate" button is what makes it actionable. From the prompts-and-sources window, you can rewrite the prompt, narrow or expand the source selection, and fire off a new generation with updated parameters. Critically, not only are the answers anchored to your documents, but now you can also inspect and tune the way that anchoring happens.
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