Build a NotebookLM Notebook for Cited Competitor Fit and Gap Answers

Before you gather anything, check that every competitor document you plan to use came from a public page: a published spec sheet, a public marketing page, or documentation posted openly on the competitor's own site.

Confidentiality caution: Competitor material you received under an NDA, a trial evaluation agreement, or any other restricted-sharing terms does not belong in this notebook, even though NotebookLM is a personal tool. Those terms usually restrict what you can retain or reuse the material for, and "compare it against our specs in an AI tool" is not something most evaluation agreements cover. If you're not sure whether a document you have counts as public, treat it as restricted and leave it out.

1. Go to NotebookLM (notebooklm.google.com) and sign in with your Google account.
2. Create a new notebook.
3. Name it something specific, like "Competitor Fit and Gap: [Competitor Name]."

What you should see: An empty notebook with an option to add sources.

Add each public competitor document as a source. NotebookLM accepts uploaded files (PDFs work well for spec sheets), pasted text, and website links, so use whichever format matches what you found.

1. Add the competitor's public spec sheet or product page.
2. Give each source a clear name as you add it (something like "Competitor A Spec Sheet, public site") so you can tell sources apart later.

What you should see: Each source listed in the notebook's source panel.

Add your own current, public-facing spec sheets and documentation as additional sources in the same notebook. This gives NotebookLM both sides of the comparison to work from.

What you should see: Your sources listed alongside the competitor sources, ideally named clearly enough that "ours" and "theirs" are obvious at a glance.

Use the chat inside the notebook to ask a specific fit and gap question.

What you should see: An answer that cites the specific source it drew from for each claim. If a source document is short, NotebookLM may cite the whole document rather than a single passage inside it. Either way, you should be able to click through to see exactly where the claim came from.

Verification step: A saved source is a snapshot from whenever you added it. Before repeating a specific technical claim to a prospect, especially about a competitor's current specs, check the competitor's live page or current published sheet to confirm nothing has changed since you added the source. Vendors update spec sheets more often than most people expect.