Forget About NotebookLM: Recall’s NEW AI Editor Is Better!

If you care about remembering what you read, watch, and research, Recall turns that scattered mess of bookmarks, PDFs, and YouTube clips into a single, searchable personal knowledge engine. I’ve been testing Recall’s new AI editor and it dramatically changes how I capture, organize, and act on information. It’s not just another note-taking app; it’s a unified workspace that summarizes sources automatically, builds connections, generates study quizzes, and even helps design an optimized weekly schedule based on what you’ve consumed.

Table of Contents

• Why choose an AI-powered knowledge base
• Quick tour: What Recall does and how it works
• Three game-changing ways to use Recall
• How Recall compares to NotebookLM, Notion, and Obsidian
• Practical workflow: build a personal knowledge engine with Recall
• Tips and best practices
• Suggested media and accessibility notes for publication
• Internal and external linking recommendations
• Suggested meta tags and article tags
• Frequently asked questions
• Final thoughts and call to action

Why choose an AI-powered knowledge base

Traditional tools like Notion, Obsidian, and NotebookLM do parts of this job well: note storage, markdown editing, or local LLM queries. But the missing piece has been a single, integrated system that ingests content from anywhere, auto-organizes it, and actively helps you learn and do work. Recall fills that gap by combining:

• Universal ingestion of URLs, PDFs, bookmarks, Pocket items, markdown files, and more
• Automatic summarization and an AI editor that rewrites content into readable notes
• Conversational search so you can chat with your knowledge base and pull context-aware answers
• Auto-tagging and a connection graph that surfaces relationships between topics
• Active recall features like spaced repetition reviews and AI-generated quizzes

Quick tour: What Recall does and how it works

Add content from any source

Drop in a URL, upload PDFs, import bookmarks, sync Pocket, or paste markdown files. There’s a Chrome extension that lets you save articles and videos directly to your knowledge base while browsing. Every item you add becomes a source you can summarize, annotate, and chat with.

Summarize, rewrite, and edit with the new AI editor

The AI editor can:

• Create detailed summaries of long articles or papers
• Rewrite complex material into simpler language for faster comprehension
• Reformat content into the note style you prefer

This makes it easy to turn dense academic papers or long-form journalism into concise study material or practical notes you will actually use.

Chat with every source in your vault

Use conversational prompts to ask specific questions of a single source or combine multiple tagged sources in a single query. For example, ask about “best time to post” across all saved articles tagged with marketing and get synthesized answers that reference each source.

Auto-tagging and the connection graph

Recall automatically tags new items using AI, so you do not have to remember to tag everything. That tag layer enables powerful searches like “show me everything tagged marketing and growth” and lets you see how ideas connect via a visual graph.

Active recall: quizzes and spaced repetition

Generate AI quizzes from any source material and run spaced repetition reviews. The review system surfaces the most important cards and helps you retain knowledge over time. You can also see the source of each quiz answer so you can verify and dive deeper.

Mobile app and cross-device continuity

Study on the go with Recall’s mobile app. Your study guides, quizzes, and notes sync across devices so you can review flashcards between meetings or during commutes.

Three game-changing ways to use Recall

Here are practical workflows that show how Recall can replace multiple tools and make you more productive and better at learning.

1. Replace every other note-taking app

If you currently juggle Notion for docs, Obsidian for knowledge management, and a separate LLM for summarization, Recall can consolidate much of that stack. Key steps to replace these apps:

1. Use the Chrome extension to clip articles and videos into Recall as you browse.
2. Run the AI editor to summarize and rewrite content into your preferred note style.
3. Let Recall auto-tag items so you can later pull whole topic sets with a single tag query.
4. Store project notes and meeting summaries inside the same system so context lives with the source materials.

The result is a self-organizing knowledge base where each note is both human-readable and AI-actionable.

2. Study for exams the efficient way

Studying becomes dramatically more efficient when your class notes, lecture PDFs, and YouTube lessons live together. A practical study workflow:

1. Upload lecture slides and PDFs for a course into Recall.
2. Save YouTube lectures and relevant articles directly into the course tag.
3. Use the AI editor to create a comprehensive study guide from all items under your course tag.
4. Generate quizzes and flashcards from that study guide, and run spaced repetition reviews daily.

That workflow condenses hours of manual summarization into minutes and targets your study sessions to what you are most likely to forget.

3. Optimize your productivity and schedule

Beyond study, Recall can combine content you consume about productivity with your actual schedule to produce tailored recommendations. For example:

1. Save videos and articles about routines, deep work, and energy management.
2. Upload or create a note with your last week’s schedule and task list.
3. Ask Recall to synthesize learnings from those productivity sources and redesign your schedule for next week.

The AI will propose specific morning routines, deep work blocks, and priorities based on your own data and the best practices from your saved sources. This turns curiosity about productivity into concrete, personalized improvements.

How Recall compares to NotebookLM, Notion, and Obsidian

All those tools are powerful. Here’s where Recall stands out:

• Unified ingestion and action — Recall doesn’t just store documents. It reads them, summarizes them, auto-tags them, and lets you act on them through chat, quizzes, and workflows.
• Built-in editor + LLM features — Instead of bouncing between a separate LLM and your notes app, Recall integrates summarization and rewriting right into the editor.
• Auto-tagging and graph visualization — These surface relationships without manual tagging, which reduces friction and improves discoverability.
• Active recall tools — Spaced repetition and quiz generation are integrated, not bolted on.
• Cost-effectiveness — Combining multiple app functions into one tool can be cheaper than subscribing to several specialized services.

Practical workflow: build a personal knowledge engine with Recall

Follow these steps to turn random links and documents into an actionable brain for work and learning.

1. Create a folder structure or tagging convention that maps to your projects and interests (for example: Marketing, Chemistry101, Productivity).
2. Install the Chrome extension and save any important article or video as you find it. Upload PDFs and import bookmarks in bulk when you do a research sprint.
3. For each major source, run the AI editor to create a concise summary and a set of key takeaways. Use the editor to rewrite difficult passages into plain language if needed.
4. Rely on auto-tagging but adjust tags for specificity where necessary. Tags are your primary lens for multi-source queries.
5. Periodically generate study guides or project briefs for each tag. Turn those into quizzes and schedule spaced repetition sessions.
6. Use the chat function to create deliverables: blog outlines, meeting agendas, or a weekly schedule. Ask the system to combine multiple tags and sources for richer output.

Tips and best practices

• Clip early and often. Save content when you find it rather than later. Capture things when they are fresh so the source context remains intact.
• Use tags as lenses. Treat tags as dynamic filters (for example, combine marketing+growth to generate a playbook from multiple sources).
• Reformat and simplify. Run dense papers through the AI editor to create a human-readable summary before you attempt to memorize or apply the ideas.
• Verify AI outputs. The chat and quiz features reference source material, so check the linked sources when accuracy matters.
• Schedule reviews. Active recall only works if you use it. Block short daily review sessions to leverage spaced repetition effectively.

Suggested media and accessibility notes for publication

To complement this article on a website, include:

• An annotated screenshot of the Recall dashboard showing the graph and tags. Alt text: Screenshot of Recall connection graph and tagged sources.
• A short screencast demonstrating clipping a YouTube video with the Chrome extension. Alt text: Screencast showing the Recall Chrome extension saving a YouTube video.
• An infographic of the study workflow: ingest, summarize, tag, generate study guide, review. Alt text: Infographic of the five-step study workflow for Recall.

These visual assets make the concept tangible and increase engagement while improving accessibility for people who scan content.

Internal and external linking recommendations

For internal links, point to related deep-dive articles such as topics on spaced repetition, productivity routines, and note-taking strategies (for example, a study guide on spaced repetition or a workflow for knowledge management). For authoritative external links, reference academic sources on spaced repetition (for example, peer-reviewed research on retention and active recall) and official product documentation for Recall and other tools mentioned.

Suggested meta tags and article tags

Meta description provided above. Suggested tags and categories: Recall, AI editor, knowledge base, spaced repetition, study tools, productivity, note-taking, NotebookLM alternative.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts and call to action

Recall is more than a note repository. It is an active knowledge engine that helps you remember, understand, and act on the information you encounter every day. Whether you want to replace a messy stack of productivity apps, study smarter for exams, or optimize your weekly routine based on the best practices you consume, Recall gives you the tools to do it faster and more reliably.

If you are serious about learning faster and keeping your knowledge useful, try building a small pilot vault: clip a few articles, run the AI editor, tag them, and create a quiz. You will quickly see how much time the system saves and how much more you retain when review becomes part of the habit.

Leave a comment with your favorite use case or a workflow you want me to expand into a step-by-step guide.