Upload the same PDF you'd drop into NotebookLM. Tali turns it into quizzes, grades what you write, and keeps bringing back what you got wrong — so you don't just chat with your notes, you learn them.
Try it freeNotebookLM hands you back something to read. Tali hands you back something to do — and then checks whether you actually did it.
The PDF, the slide decks, the DOCX, a photo of a page — up to 30MB a file, in ten languages. The same source you'd feed NotebookLM. Tali reads it in order and writes a run of short, titled notes, one idea each, instead of a single wall of summary.
Hit "test me" and Tali generates questions off your own chapter — multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and open-ended proofs it actually grades. This is the part NotebookLM doesn't do: it will discuss your notes forever, but it never checks whether you can reproduce them.
Miss a question and Tali doesn't just move on. It reveals the answer, explains it, and offers a fresh similar question you answer on the spot — and the one you missed is quietly scheduled to come back later, so you meet it again before you'd have forgotten it.
Both let you upload your sources and chat with them. The difference is what happens next: NotebookLM helps you understand your material; Tali makes sure you can reproduce it under exam conditions.
| NotebookLM | Tali | |
|---|---|---|
| Chat with your sources, grounded in citations | Yes | Yes |
| Auto summaries and study notes | Yes | Yes |
| Audio overview (podcast of your notes) | Yes | — |
| Quizzes off your own material (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, open-ended) | — | Yes |
| Grades the written answers you type, and tells you what you missed | — | Yes |
| Wrong-answer loop: re-explains, then hands you a fresh similar question on the spot | — | Yes |
| Spaced repetition that brings weak points back before you forget them | — | Yes |
| Upload a past exam paper and get practice questions from it | — | Yes |
Want a podcast of your notes to listen to on a walk? Use NotebookLM — it's genuinely good at that. Want to sit the exam next month and pass it? That's the part Tali is built for.
Reading a good summary feels like progress and mostly isn't. Tali is built on the Feynman idea: you don't know it until you can produce it without the page in front of you. It asks, you answer, and it tells you where you were vague. Chatting with a document can't do that for you.
Get something wrong in NotebookLM and nothing happens — you'd have to remember to revisit it yourself. In Tali, a missed question re-explains itself, spawns a similar one to try immediately, and enters spaced repetition so it resurfaces on the day you're about to forget it. The forgetting curve is handled for you.
Type out a proof or a calculation and Tali marks it against the reference answer, scores it, and tells you what your version left out. Not a multiple-choice illusion of testing — your actual working, checked. Nothing in the chat-with-your-docs category does this.
Upload last year's paper and Tali pulls out each question, writes a note per exam point, and generates fresh variants to drill. A chat tool can talk about the paper; Tali makes the paper into a study set you work through.
NotebookLM is lovely for exploring a subject. But if there's a date, a pass mark and a room booked, exploring isn't enough — you need to be tested, corrected and made to repeat the hard parts until they're automatic. That's the job Tali takes.
You've been through the material twice and still couldn't explain it out loud. Passive review has a ceiling. Active recall plus spaced repetition is the way through it, and it's exactly what Tali automates from the notes you upload.
Generic question banks half-overlap your syllabus and waste your time. Tali generates questions from your chapter and your past papers, so every minute of practice is aimed at what you're actually being examined on.
NotebookLM is built for understanding your sources — chat with them, summarise them, turn them into an audio overview. Tali is built for mastering them. It takes the same uploads and generates practice questions off them, grades the answers you write, re-teaches what you get wrong, and schedules it back with spaced repetition. Short version: NotebookLM helps you read your material; Tali makes sure you can pass on it.
No — that's genuinely NotebookLM's strength, and if a podcast of your notes is what you want, use it. Tali spends its effort on the testing-and-remembering side instead: quizzes, grading, the wrong-answer loop and spaced repetition. Plenty of people use both, one to absorb and one to drill.
You get free tokens when you create an account, no card required — enough to upload your first material and get notes, chat and practice out of it. After that you top up when you need to. No subscription, no monthly fee; you pay only for what you generate.
PDF, DOCX, PPTX, Markdown, plain text, and photos or screenshots of pages (PNG, JPG, WEBP, HEIC), up to 30MB per file — the same kinds of source you'd put into NotebookLM, plus photographed exam papers.
Yes. Tali writes notes and runs the study loop in English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Portuguese, Russian and Italian — and it can give you notes in your language even when the source material is in another.
Your material is used to generate your own notes and practice, and for nothing else. It isn't shared and it isn't sold. Delete a source whenever you like and the notes generated from it are deleted with it.
Drop in a PDF and get notes you can actually study from — then let Tali quiz you until you can explain it.
Upload the chapter you have to know cold. Tali writes the questions and schedules them — what you miss comes back tomorrow, what you know comes back in a month.
Not generic questions — questions from the exact chapter you just read, marked by something that tells you what you missed.
Upload a past paper and Tali reads it question by question — then writes you a note for each exam point it tests. CFA, PMP, CPA, university finals.
Ask your PDF anything and get answers grounded in the page. Then let Tali quiz you on it, mark what you write, and resurface what you missed — because chatting with a document isn't the same as knowing it.