Google Adds Expert Intelligence to Gemini Notebook, Bringing 100,000 Books Into Your AI Research

Summary

Google rolled out Expert Intelligence inside Gemini Notebook today, a feature that connects the AI notebook tool to a library of more than 100,000 ebooks from major publishers. Users can add any compatible ebook they have purchased from Google Play Books to a Notebook session and then ask Gemini questions, generate quizzes, build infographics, or create Audio Overviews, all grounded directly in the text of that specific book. The feature is now available to all personal Google accounts with Gemini Notebook and Google Play Books enabled, with no Workspace subscription required.

Why it matters

This turns Gemini Notebook from a tool for importing your own documents into something closer to a reading companion for any book you have bought on Google Play. For anyone who uses NotebookLM or Gemini Notebook for research, learning, or professional development, this is a meaningful expansion of what the tool can do without any extra cost.

HTD Says

Google connected Gemini Notebook to over 100,000 books from Google Play, and now you can have a “real” conversation with any ebook you have purchased instead of just reading it passively, which is the kind of feature that sounds minor until you actually try it.

I really have mixed feelings about this. While I do feel that AI is beneficial for students who want to go deeper into a subject or book, I worry that by enabling this, students will NOT read the book and will simply ask for summaries. I realize this can already be done with any AI (e.g., “give me a summary of this book”), but if you make it even easier, students will take the path of least resistance.

A better path > read the book > ask AI about it > have an interactive Q&A session with AI (or, gasp, a person) > quiz yourself via AI. Even that has too much AI in it, but we have to assume that practically nobody does anything “offline” anymore.

Source:

Google Workspace Blog