Though Adobe has tools for every imaginable workflow, the last thing I expected was the Creativity giant launching a feature that felt like a competitor to one of my favorite productivity tools, NotebookLM. If you aren’t familiar with NotebookLM, it’s Google’s AI-powered research assistant, a tool I’ve been using daily since Google first tested it as an experimental project in Labs.
I might be the biggest NotebookLM fan you’ll meet, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ignore alternatives that claim to do something similar. I’ve tested NotebookLM competitors before, including tools focused on specific features like Mind Maps and Audio Overviews, and even pitted other Google Labs experiments against it to see how they stack up in comparison.
So, of course, when Adobe announced a feature whose description sounded surprisingly similar to NotebookLM’s core functionality, I had to take a closer look. I decided to use it for a week straight, and the results were…interesting.
What are Adobe PDF Spaces
A workspace for your PDFs
A couple of days ago, Adobe announced Acrobat Studio, which included a feature called PDF Spaces. In the press release, Adobe explained that the feature uses AI agents to convert documents you upload into conversational knowledge hubs.
Once your documents have been uploaded to a PDF Space and processed, you can interact with it by asking questions about the content of your document, requesting summaries of sections, getting recommendations, and more. If you’ve used NotebookLM before, you likely know that this is exactly what the tool is built on. NotebookLM’s biggest strength lies in helping users interact with information they already have, and with PDF Spaces, Adobe brought a similar capability into its own ecosystem.
Both NotebookLM and PDF Spaces don’t access the internet or rely on their own knowledge to answer any question you may have about what you’ve uploaded. So, say you upload lecture slides your economics professor sent you, and you ask the AI to tell you what features iPadOS 26 introduces. Since there’s no relation between economics and iPadOS 26 whatsoever (unless your lecture slides happen to cover both, which is unlikely), the AI in both tools won’t guess or pull in outside information.
NotebookLM often just tells you straight-up that your sources don’t include the information you’re asking for, while Adobe’s PDF Spaces tend to give you a summary of the content in your sources instead. With both tools, any claim the AI makes is backed up by clickable citations, which you can use to quickly cross-reference information. So, the core idea behind both NotebookLM and Adobe PDF Spaces is to let you interact directly with the information you’ve uploaded and turn documents into AI-powered workspaces.
So, how do PDF Spaces compare to NotebookLM?
Can Adobe keep up with NotebookLM?
Now that you have a good idea of what PDF Spaces are, the next question is how they actually perform compared to NotebookLM. When you’re creating a PDF Space in Adobe Acrobat, you can add up to 100 files. Like NotebookLM, PDF Spaces supports a range of file types, including PDF, DOCX, PPTX, TXT, and more. You can also add URLs or paste copied text.
Right off the bat, one thing I’ll give Adobe credit for is that its interface beats NotebookLM. Maybe I feel that way because I’ve been using NotebookLM for far too long and have grown accustomed to its interface, but Adobe’s interface just feels cleaner and more modern. The structure of both tools is quite similar, though.
You’ll notice a chat panel at the bottom of the workspace where you can type questions, ask for summaries, or request recommendations. One unique feature from PDF Spaces that stood out to me is its auto-generated insights. PDF Spaces essentially goes through the documents you uploaded and pulls out key points, displaying them in individual cards with an ‘Ask a question’ button.
NotebookLM simply displays a summary of all your sources under the title of a notebook, so I found Adobe’s approach really refreshing. By breaking insights into individual cards with a clear button, PDF Spaces makes it easier to interact with specific pieces of information without getting lost in a long summary. When it comes to interacting with the PDF, Adobe doesn’t disappoint either. Like NotebookLM, the moment your sources in the PDF Space are processed, the AI instantly generates three suggested questions you can ask.
Whether you use one of the AI-generated questions or type your own, the feature does a pretty good job of pulling out relevant insights from your documents. The answers also don’t seem filled with fluff; they’re usually concise, accurate, and well-organized. You can also follow up with additional questions or dive deeper into specific points.
PDF Spaces only covers one NotebookLM feature
Not quite the full NotebookLM experience
Though Adobe’s PDF Spaces is built around NotebookLM’s core functionality, interacting with PDFs isn’t the only thing NotebookLM can do. In fact, most would argue that the real strength of NotebookLM is its other features. With NotebookLM, you can convert sources you upload into AI-generated podcasts called Audio Overviews, Video Overviews, interactive Mind Maps, Briefing Docs, Study Guides, and soon, you’ll even be able to convert them into interactive flashcards. PDF Spaces, on the other hand, is focused solely on letting you interact with uploaded documents through its chat interface and auto-generated insights. So, while PDF Spaces does its one job well, it’s only a fraction of what NotebookLM offers.
The reason I focused so much on the fact that Adobe PDF Spaces only covers one NotebookLM feature is because there’s another major difference between the two. NotebookLM has a solid free tier, which I’ve been relying on since I started using it, while PDF Spaces is a paid feature. At the time I’m writing this, it is free for all and will remain so until September 1, 2025.
This is because Adobe gave all users a 14-day free trial when it launched. After the trial, early access pricing starts at $24.99/month for individuals and $29.99/month for teams. By comparison, you can get NotebookLM by subscribing to Google AI Pro, which costs $19.99/month ($9.99/month for the first two months). You not only get a lot more features in NotebookLM for a lower cost but also access other Google AI Pro perks. And if you’re a college student, you can get NotebookLM’s premium tier completely free for a year.
So, would I switch to PDF Spaces permanently?
Credit where credit’s due — PDF Spaces does what it’s meant to do well. However, NotebookLM does the same thing, and does it just as well too. If NotebookLM didn’t exist, I might have considered paying for PDF Spaces. But since NotebookLM already offers this functionality for free, I frankly can’t imagine paying $30/month just to get a single feature that I already use daily for free.