Google’s Gemini Notebook adds ‘Expert Intelligence’ to query purchased books

Google’s Gemini Notebook added an ‘Expert Intelligence’ feature that pulls content from books users have purchased on Google Play Books, enabling users to ask questions about the material and generate new artifacts such as plans, infographics, and AI podcasts.

During a briefing, Google Labs editorial director Steven Johnson demonstrated the tool by generating a recipe book from Michael Pollan’s Food Rules and answering a management question using insights from Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.

The feature displays the full text of supported books within Gemini Notebook and includes safeguards so that only users who purchased a title can access its full text; users who receive a shared Notebook see the title listed as a source but cannot view its contents unless they purchase it.

At launch, more than 100,000 books from publishers including Penguin Random House, Johns Hopkins University Press, Macmillan Publishers, and O’Reilly Media are supported, and 15 authors including Michael Pollan, Kim Scott, Steven Pinker, and Jennifer Wallace contributed “Featured Notebooks” with additional materials.

Google also announced plans to extend Expert Intelligence to scholarly articles, magazine articles, and newspapers, and to bring the capability to AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app.