How to Learn Any Topic with AI: Perplexity & Notebook LM Tutorial (Live Demo)

Students and curious learners, buckle up. In this solo walkthrough, I share my end-to-end AI study workflow, from finding credible sources to locking them into your memory, using two free tools you can start with today: 1. Perplexity.ai – the research power-house that surfaces sources and cites them. 2. Notebook LM (Google beta) – your personal reading coach, audiobook narrator, quiz-master and mind-mapping sidekick. 🔑 What You’ll Learn * Prompt like a pro – the exact template I drop into Perplexity to get PhD-level briefs. * Turn dense PDFs into podcasts – let Notebook LM read any doc aloud while you cook, drive or walk. * Generate study guides & self-quizzes in seconds – spaced-repetition without the flash-card grunt-work. * Visual aids & mind-mapping – why teaching the material back to yourself locks it in. * A peek at where AI learning is headed next (multi-modal, voice-first, real-time). Chapters 00:00 Introduction – How AI can super-charge your learning skills 01:00 Perplexity.ai – Researching any topic 04:56 Notebook LM – Reading, retaining & understanding information 09:21 Demo: Notebook LM’s audio function 10:22 Overview of other Notebook LM features 14:09 Visual aids & mind-mapping 14:31 The future of AI in learning 16:20 “My Way or the AI Way” remix (courtesy of Mubert) 🛠️ Links & Resources * Perplexity.ai (free) - https://www.perplexity.ai * Notebook LM (Google beta) - https://notebook.google.com/lm * Huberman Lab episode on Study Protocols for learning & memory - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddq8JIMhz7c 📌 Key Take-aways * Context is king: richer prompts = richer answers. * Audio + active recall beats passive reading. * The Research, Reading and Revision steps are merging into one AI-assisted loop—and early adopters win. 👉 Try It & Tell Me Put the workflow to the test on your next big topic (exam, project, hobby) and comment below: Which part saved you the most time? If you need the prompt pack or slide deck, just ask - happy to share. https://www.linkedin.com/in/davisonscott/