Google has added a feature to its AI note-taking app, Gemini Notebook, that lets users pull information from books they have purchased through Google Play Books. The update, announced in August 2026, is called “Expert Intelligence” and allows users to ask questions about a book’s contents, as well as generate plans, infographics, AI podcasts, and more based on the material.
During a briefing with The Verge, Google Labs editorial director Steven Johnson demonstrated the feature using Michael Pollan’s Food Rules to generate a recipe book, and Kim Scott’s Radical Candor to answer a workplace management question. Users can also view the full text of a supported book directly within Notebook.
At launch, more than 100,000 books from publishers including Penguin Random House, Johns Hopkins University Press, Macmillan Publishers, and O’Reilly Media will support the feature. Google also partnered with 15 authors — among them Pollan, Scott, Steven Pinker, and Jennifer Wallace — to create “Featured Notebooks,” which each author has customized with additional source material and intro letters. Books that support Expert Intelligence will display a “Gemini Notebook” label under the “Tools” badge in Google Play Books.
Google has built access controls into the feature to prevent users from viewing content from books they have not purchased. If a shared Notebook includes a purchased book, other users will see it listed as a source but will not be able to access its text or related information. Clicking the source will redirect them to Google Play Books to purchase the title.
“We want to be able to create a space where users can bring whatever knowledge, whatever expertise they think is going to be most relevant and do it in a way that creates new revenue possibilities for authors and publishers as well,” Johnson said.
Google plans to bring Expert Intelligence to AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, both of which already connect to Gemini Notebook. The company also intends to expand the feature to support scholarly articles, magazine articles, and newspapers.
Source: The Verge