Gemini Notebook turns your ebook library into an AI research tool

Google is adding a feature called Expert Intelligence to Gemini Notebook that lets users import eligible books they own through Google Play Books. The feature turns purchased titles into sources that users can question, summarise and reuse in AI-generated formats. Emma Roth reports for The Verge that users can also create plans, infographics and AI-generated podcasts from a book’s content.

Gemini Notebook can display the full text of an eligible book within the app. Google demonstrated the system using Michael Pollan’s Food Rules to create a recipe book. In another example, it used Kim Scott’s Radical Candor to help answer a management question about a difficult employee conversation.

Initial catalogue and access controls

More than 100,000 titles will initially support Expert Intelligence. Participating publishers include Penguin Random House, Johns Hopkins University Press, Macmillan Publishers and O’Reilly Media.

Google is also launching Featured Notebooks with 15 authors, including Pollan, Scott, Steven Pinker and Jennifer Wallace. These notebooks add author-selected materials, introductory letters and other supporting content. Compatible books will show a Gemini Notebook label in the Tools section of Google Play Books.

The company says ownership restrictions remain in place when notebooks are shared. A recipient who has not bought a referenced book can see that it is listed as a source, but cannot read its text or access answers based on it. Instead, Gemini Notebook directs that user to the title’s Play Books listing.

Google plans to extend Expert Intelligence to AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app. It also intends to add scholarly papers, magazines and newspapers as supported sources.