Overview
- Google announced the launch on Thursday, August 27, 2026, and made Expert Intelligence available for eligible ebooks in Google Play Books.
- Users can add Play Books titles they own into Gemini Notebook so the AI can answer questions or cite passages that come directly from that book.
- The product enforces ownership checks so collaborators who do not own a title are prompted to buy it and cannot view the book content inside a shared notebook.
- Expert Intelligence launches with more than 100,000 titles from publishers such as Penguin Random House, Macmillan and Johns Hopkins University Press and includes about 15 author-curated Featured Notebooks by writers like Michael Pollan and Steven Pinker.
- Google says it plans to expand the feature into the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search and to add other source types, and publishers view the launch as a rights-respecting revenue model that will be watched by authors and courts.