Connect a notebook of your top 25 video transcripts and analytics to Gemini. What you get isn't a generic AI — it's an AI that has actually watched your channel, read your numbers, and can now act as a strategist who knows your specific content inside out.
Most AI YouTube advice is generic because the AI knows nothing about your channel. This workflow changes that. By loading your actual transcripts and analytics into NotebookLM first, then connecting that notebook to Gemini, the AI stops giving advice for a hypothetical channel and starts giving advice for yours.
It can tell you which topics your audience actually finishes watching, which hooks you use that underperform, where your retention always drops, and what adjacent topics your best-performing videos have already started to establish authority on.
Before you run any prompts, build your notebook with the right sources. Quality matters more than quantity here. These are the five source types that give the AI the most useful signal about your channel.
| Source | What to include | How to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Video transcripts | Your top 25 videos by views or watch time. Include the transcript text and the video title at the top of each file. One .txt file per video works well. | YouTube Studio → Content → click a video → Subtitles → Download. Or paste the auto-generated transcript from the video page (click "…" under a video → "Open transcript"). |
| Analytics overview | Channel-level data: views, watch time, CTR, average view duration, impressions, and subscriber growth over the past 12 months. | YouTube Studio → Analytics → Advanced mode → Export as CSV. Paste or upload the CSV directly as a NotebookLM source. |
| Per-video analytics | For each of your top 25 videos: title, views, watch time, CTR, average view duration, top traffic sources, and top audience retention moments. | YouTube Studio → Analytics → Content tab → click each video. Screenshot or manually copy stats into a single spreadsheet or text doc, one row per video. |
| Comment highlights | 100–200 comments from your top 10 videos. Focus on questions, requests, and "I wish you had covered…" type comments. Skip pure praise. | Manually curate from YouTube comments, or use a tool like youtube-comment-downloader to bulk export then filter. |
| Your channel context | A short text document you write: channel niche, target audience, content goals, what's working/not working, your upload frequency, and your 3-month growth target. | Write this yourself in 3–5 paragraphs. This is the most important source — it prevents generic advice by telling the AI exactly who you're making videos for. |
Go to notebooklm.google.com and create a new notebook. Name it something like "YouTube Strategy — [Your Channel Name]." Keep this notebook exclusively for strategy work — don't mix it with other projects.
For each of your top 25 videos, create a text file with this format at the top: TITLE: [video title] | VIEWS: [X] | AVG WATCH TIME: [X:XX] | CTR: [X%] followed by the full transcript. Upload each as a separate source so NotebookLM can cite specific videos in its answers.
Upload your analytics CSV, your per-video stats spreadsheet, your comment highlights, and your channel context document. You should now have 28–31 sources total (25 transcripts + analytics + comments + context).
Before connecting to Gemini, click the Notebook Guide (magic wand icon) and generate a summary. This tells you what NotebookLM has understood about your channel. If the summary is vague or off-base, improve your channel context document before proceeding.
Open gemini.google.com and start a new conversation. In the prompt area, click the NotebookLM connector icon (the notebook icon in the attachment bar) and select your YouTube Strategy notebook. Gemini now has full access to all your sources.
Start every Gemini session with this orienting prompt to ensure it's working from your notebook and not its general training:
Run these first. They establish baseline understanding of what's working across your catalog before you do any planning.
Find what your audience wants that you haven't made yet — using your own data instead of guessing.
Every prompt in this guide plus all prompts across the full category — advanced workflows, specialized use cases, and production-grade templates.
Category Bundle — one-time access
Unlock Category Prompts — $19.99ONE-TIME · 30-DAY GUARANTEE · INSTANT ACCESS