Google’s Audio Overview tool, which was one of the standout features in its NotebookLM platform, has recently encountered issues, leaving users unable to generate new audio overviews. Audio Overviews, which allow users to transform lengthy text documents into engaging audio summaries, similar to the style of a “deep dive” podcast, had been rolled out to Google Gemini on both the web and its mobile apps just last month. This feature became available to both free and premium subscribers, offering a convenient way to listen to summaries of documents in a dynamic and accessible format.
However, as of this weekend, there’s been a noticeable disruption. According to reports from 9to5Google, users have been facing problems with the tool, and it seems that the feature is currently broken across both the Gemini 2.0 Flash and the 2.5 Pro (Experimental) models, affecting both web and app users. The issue impacts all users, whether they are free or paid subscribers, though free users are typically limited to fewer overviews than paying customers.
Normally, when the tool functions correctly, users can upload a document—whether it’s a PDF or DOCX file—and initiate an audio-based summary by tapping the “Generate Audio Overview” button. The process isn’t instant, as Gemini notifies users that the generation of the overview may take several minutes, depending on the document’s size. Once the audio overview is ready, a notification would alert the user. While the notification appears as expected, instead of the promised audio summary, users are met with an error message. Attempts to generate overviews using different file formats, including PDFs and DOCX files, only resulted in the same error. Gemini did offer alternative options, such as providing a text summary or answering specific questions about the uploaded document, but the core functionality of creating an audio summary remains unavailable.
Interestingly, while the Audio Overview feature in Gemini is experiencing these issues, NotebookLM, another product from Google, continues to offer the tool without any problems. Users who are looking to access the audio overview tool can still use it through the NotebookLM web interface, although it is currently limited to the web platform. Fortunately, NotebookLM is expected to expand in the future. In the meantime, users of Gemini will have to wait for a fix to be implemented.
Aside from this issue with Audio Overviews, some Gemini Advanced subscribers briefly encountered another glitch: the older Gemini 2.0 Experimental Advanced model appeared in the list of available options. This seems to have been an error, as the model has since disappeared from the selection.
In more recent updates, the Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) model has introduced support for the Deep Research feature, but this new addition is currently available only to Gemini Advanced users. Given the ongoing developments, we hope the Gemini team addresses the Audio Overview issue soon and restores full functionality for users.
4o mini