Google Labs: Tools Founders Should Steal
The best experiments to save time and ship faster
If you’re only using ChatGPT, you’re missing a whole toolbox.
Google has a whole set of AI experiments most founders don’t even know exist.
It’s called Google Labs, and it’s basically where Google ships “half-baked” ideas before they become real products.
If you haven’t tried Google Labs, it’s a missed opportunity, because a few of these tools can save you hours this week with almost zero setup.
Below are the ones worth trying first:
1. NotebookLM: Turn Research Overload Into Insight
The Problem: You’re drowning in PDFs, articles, and documents. Reading everything takes hours.
The Solution: Upload everything to NotebookLM. It analyzes all your documents and becomes your personal research assistant.
Key Features:
• Audio Overviews: Turns documents into podcast conversations. Listen during your commute.
• Deep Research: Scours the web and generates comprehensive reports.
• Video Overviews & Infographics: Transforms summaries into visual presentations.
• Gemini is slowly rolling out access (starting in the US) to NotebookLM within Gemini. This means you can have a “conversation” with your Notebook. Super powerful.
2. Opal: Automate Tasks Without Hiring Developers
The Problem: You have repetitive tasks eating your time, but you can’t code and can’t afford developers.
The Solution: Describe what you want in plain English. Opal builds custom AI-powered workflows and mini-apps for you.
Example:
Create a podcast outline generator that searches trending topics, generates episode ideas with talking points, and creates visual concepts—all in minutes. Or build tools to automate research, generate custom reports, or streamline weekly newsletter updates.
3. Pomelli: End Social Media Content Burnout
The Problem: Creating on-brand social content every week is exhausting and time-consuming. You wish you could just upload your brand assets and have all the social graphics instantly created.
The Solution: Pomelli analyzes your website to understand your brand—tone, fonts, colors, style. Then generates complete social campaigns that actually match your voice and branding. Keep the social graphics as-is or use the concepts as inspiration for your own designs.
Example:
Generate a month’s worth of product launch content, Instagram posts, Facebook ads, graphics, in one sitting. All matching your exact brand colors, fonts, and voice.
4. Google Vids: Create Marketing Videos in Seconds
The Problem: Video content drives engagement, but production is expensive and slow.
The Solution: Google Vids is an AI-powered video creation app built into Google Workspace. Start with a prompt or template, and it generates full video presentations with AI voiceovers, stock footage, and custom visuals. You can also generate 8-second video clips using Veo 3 to add dynamic b-roll to your projects.
Example:
Create customer support walkthroughs, employee training videos, or product launch announcements. Use AI avatars and voiceovers to scale your message without recording yourself.
5. ImageFX: Stop Paying for Stock Photos
The Problem: Stock photos are expensive, generic, and never quite right. Custom design is even more expensive.
The Solution: ImageFX (powered by Imagen 3) turns text descriptions into high-quality images in seconds. Type what you want, and it generates four variations instantly. Use ‘expressive chips’ to tweak style, mood, and details without rewriting your prompt.
Example:
Create product mockups, blog header images, social media graphics, and ad visuals—all unique to your brand. No more scrolling through stock photo sites.
Final Thoughts
Start with NotebookLM and Opal—those two alone can save you hours every week.
These are experiments. They’re not perfect, and some might disappear. But the ones that work can give you a serious competitive advantage.
Try one this week. Visit labs.google to explore all 35+ experiments.
Talk soon,
Brian + Andrea
P.S. Reply and let us know which experiment you try. We’d love to hear about the results.