Google is letting Gemini Notebook pull answers from books. The company introduced Expert Intelligence, which it describes as a cross-Google effort to connect users with trusted sources through its AI products, starting with Gemini Notebook. The feature draws on more than 100,000 books from major publishers, and Google says employees and students can now fold insights from authors and domain experts into their notebooks.
The practical hook is Play Books. Users can add compatible ebooks they have already bought from Google Play Books to a Gemini Notebook, then ask questions about the book and get responses grounded in its text. Google is also giving away one book to users 18 and older in the U.S. while supplies last.
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Notebooks can do more than answer questions about a title. Google says readers can generate Infographics, Audio Overviews, and Quizzes from a book, and combine a book with their own material. A student could upload a syllabus and lecture notes alongside a purchased book to build an Audio Overview and practice quizzes for final exams, while a manager could consult a management book while brainstorming how to give feedback.
There is a catch for shared notebooks. Anyone who wants to ask questions or create artifacts from an ebook in a notebook someone else shared must have bought an eligible Play Book ebook themselves.
Admins carry the setup burden. End users need to sit in an organizational unit with Gemini Notebook, Google Play, and Google Books all switched on, and there is no end user setting for the feature. For students who need only specific titles, admins can buy books through Buy for Groups and assign them without granting Google Play access, an option open to organizations with Google Workspace for Education Plus or a Teaching & Learning add-on.
To check whether a title works, users can look it up on Google Play Books; eligible ebooks list Gemini Notebook when the Tools badge is clicked on the book's detail page. Google says the feature is available now for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains, and it reaches all Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and personal Google account holders who have Gemini Notebook, Google Play, and Google Books enabled.
The launch lands alongside other recent Gemini Notebook work. Google added audit logs for the app in the Admin console earlier this month, giving administrators visibility into usage and data access through the security investigation and audit tools. Notebooks themselves, first announced in April as a space for individual users to organize projects and conversations, opened to students, educators, and professionals this month.
What Google has not said is how much the arrangement returns to publishers, or how the free book offer will be distributed once supplies run out. The publishers behind the catalog also go unnamed, though the announcement points readers to a page for browsing eligible titles.
