Gemini Notebook, formerly known as NotebookLM, is getting a new feature that lets you directly access and cite information from the books you own. Google refers to it as Expert Intelligence, and the idea is clear: instead of citing information only from sources you upload or pull from the internet, you can now extract knowledge from digital books you've purchased.
Of course, you must own the book after purchasing it from the Google Play Books library. For now, Google is offering one free book to users in the US as part of the launch campaign, "while supplies last." Expert Intelligence is currently available only in the Gemini Notebook app and its web dashboard, but Google says it will also appear within the core Gemini app and AI mode in Search.
The broad idea is to combine what Gemini can already do with expertise sourced from your favorite books. If you ask Gemini to create a meal plan based entirely on chicken and spinach, you can have it look for relevant recipes in a Martha Stewart cookbook you own. You can use these books as sources and turn them into Infographics, Audio Overviews, and Quizzes, among other formats.
Expert Intelligence is available starting today, open to books published by major names like Bloomsbury, Johns Hopkins University Press, Macmillan, O'Reilly Media, and Penguin Random House, covering over 100,000 titles. Google has also partnered with authors to create Featured Notebooks with extra insights. The feature isn't an open buffet - if you share a notebook, others need to own or purchase the book too to fully use Expert Intelligence.
For readers, this means AI is no longer just a summarization tool. It can dig into books you actually own and help you convert knowledge into forms you can review and share. This could be a significant direction for AI-assisted learning.