What Can Google’s “Expert Intelligence” Do? How to Use Purchased Books in Gemini Notebook
On August 27, 2026, Google announced “Expert Intelligence.” The feature lets you add eligible ebooks purchased from Google Play Books directly as sources in Gemini Notebook, formerly NotebookLM.
When you ask a question about an added book, Gemini Notebook answers based on the book and shows the relevant citations. You can also create quizzes and Audio Overviews from the material, or combine it with your own notes and work documents to explore an idea more deeply.
Until now, DRM made it difficult to load commercially published ebooks into an AI service. The important change is that books approved by their publishers can now be added safely from the Google Account that purchased them.
Expert Intelligence lets you use purchased books as references
| Item | What we know as of August 31, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Expert Intelligence | A cross-Google initiative for using trusted content in Google AI products |
| First available in | Gemini Notebook |
| Sources you can add now | Eligible English-language ebooks purchased from Google Play Books |
| Eligible catalog | More than 100,000 books at launch; some books are excluded depending on publisher, language, and format |
| Planned expansion | The Gemini app, AI Mode in Google Search, third-party subscription content, research reports, textbooks, and more |
Conventional AI systems answer from what they learned during training, which can lead to plausible-sounding falsehoods, or hallucinations. With Expert Intelligence, however, the AI can open the book the reader actually purchased and use it as the basis for an answer.
Answers always include citations to the relevant part of the book. Instead of taking the AI’s words at face value, you can return to the original passage and confirm the author’s intent for yourself.
At launch, participating publishers included O’Reilly Media, Bloomsbury, Macmillan, and Penguin Random House, with more than 100,000 eligible titles. For now, however, the feature is limited to select English-language books, and not every title from a participating publisher is supported.
Ask questions and create material for study or work
After adding an eligible ebook to Gemini Notebook, you can do more than read it from beginning to end or generate a summary. You can:
- Ask how the author explains a particular topic
- Open a citation attached to an answer and check the surrounding context
- Create comprehension quizzes, study guides, Audio Overviews, mind maps, and other material from the book
- Place multiple eligible books in one notebook and compare their perspectives
- Add your own notes or business documents and ask how the author’s thinking applies to your problem
Gemini Notebook is particularly good at grounding answers in the sources you provide. Expert Intelligence lets you add professionally written, commercially published books to that source collection.
Google’s announcement gives examples such as combining a book about organizational management with a real workplace concern, or using a nutrition book and a photo of your refrigerator to plan a meal. Rather than stopping after reading general advice, the tool can help you consider what that advice means in your own situation.
How to add an eligible book from Play Books
Adding an eligible title is straightforward from the Gemini Notebook interface.
- Open Gemini Notebook and sign in with the same Google Account you use for Google Play Books.
- Create a new notebook or open an existing one.
- Choose “Play Books” from “Add sources.”
- Select an eligible book you have purchased and add it as a source.
Books in your library appear in the list, but ineligible titles are grayed out and cannot be selected.
If you are about to buy a book, open the “Tools” badge near the page count on the product page and check whether “Gemini Notebook” appears. For a book you already own, you can also look for a “Use with Gemini Notebook” button in the “About this book” section of Google Play Books.
How this differs from uploading your own file
Gemini Notebook has long allowed users to add PDFs, EPUB files, Google Docs, and other sources themselves. You may therefore wonder how this feature differs from uploading a file in the usual way.
The biggest difference is that an authorized ebook purchased through Google Play Books can be connected safely in its original form. Commercial ebooks are normally protected by DRM, so you cannot simply extract the file or copy the entire text yourself. With Expert Intelligence, publishers authorize the use and Google verifies the purchase on your account, allowing you to use the book without manually turning it into a file or risking a terms-of-service violation.
PDFs and EPUB files that you upload to your own Google Play Books library are not eligible for this feature. If you want Gemini Notebook to read a file you already have, continue uploading it directly to Gemini Notebook as before.
People you share with must also own the book
There is one important rule to remember when sharing a notebook with teammates or friends. Even if you share a notebook containing an eligible book, you do not share the right to read or use that book.
For a collaborator to consult the book or ask questions about it inside the notebook, their account must also have purchased the same title. If they have not bought it, that book source is unavailable to them.
This may seem slightly inconvenient, but it prevents a single purchase from giving an entire group access to a book and protects the rights of authors and publishers. If several people want to use the notebook together, check in advance that every member owns the title.
It works best when you combine a specialist book with your own material
Expert Intelligence is particularly useful when a commercially published specialist book and your own information are placed together in one notebook.
| Use case | Sources to combine | Example question |
|---|---|---|
| Management | An organizational management book + meeting notes | Using the author’s approach, what should I address first in this situation? |
| Technical learning | A technical book + your design document | Which parts of this design depart from the principles in the book? Explain why and cite the relevant passages. |
| Certification or coursework | A study guide + lecture notes | Create a review quiz from the material covered in the lecture and explain the points people are likely to get wrong. |
| Planning and marketing | A marketing book + customer survey responses | What patterns become visible if these survey responses are classified using the framework in the book? |
As we explained in “NotebookLM Becomes Gemini Notebook: More Than a Name Change,” Gemini Notebook is evolving beyond a place to store documents into a workspace for thinking with those documents. Being able to bring a trusted specialist book into that workspace is a major advantage for both professional work and study.
Five limitations to check before using it
The feature is useful, but it currently has several limitations. Check these five points before you begin.
- Only select English-language ebooks are eligible: As of August 2026, the feature is limited to select English-language titles and does not yet support Japanese-language books.
- You must buy the Google Play Books edition: Owning a print copy or an ebook from another store, such as Kindle, does not transfer that purchase to Google Play Books.
- Some books from participating publishers are still ineligible: A title may not be available because of its contract or format, even if its publisher participates.
- Sharing a notebook does not share the book: Collaborators cannot use the book in the notebook unless they purchase their own copy.
- The AI’s interpretation may still be wrong: Even when the book is used as a source, the AI can misunderstand your question or misinterpret the text. Always check the cited passage before making an important decision.
If you combine a specialist book with work documents, journal entries, or other personal material, you also need to consider confidential and personal information. A trustworthy book does not change the need to manage the data you add yourself.
The AI has not become an expert—it can now open a trusted book
Generative AI has long been able to produce authoritative-sounding answers when prompted to “answer as an expert.” But no matter how professional the tone sounds, that does not guarantee the answer is grounded in a reliable publication.
The essence of Expert Intelligence is not making an AI appear to be an expert. It is giving the AI access to a reliable source—a book written by a professional—while preserving publisher permission and the reader’s purchasing rights. The AI does not replace the author; it acts as an assistant that helps the reader examine a book they already own.
Google says it plans to expand the approach to the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search, as well as subscription content, research reports, textbooks, and other sources. The connection between AI systems and reliable information sources is likely to become more common.
Even so, an AI summary or suggestion is not guaranteed to be 100% correct. Check the cited passage together with its surrounding context, and remember that the final judgment still belongs to a person.
Start by checking whether any of your books are eligible
If you already own an English-language specialist book through Google Play Books, open “Add sources” in Gemini Notebook, choose Play Books, and check whether the title is eligible.
If you are looking for a new book, open the “Tools” section on its product page before purchasing and confirm that “Gemini Notebook” is listed.
Once you have added a book, begin with a question such as, “What does the author say about this topic?” Following the citation in the answer straight back to the relevant page gives you a sense of the confidence that comes from a verifiable source—something different from a conventional chat AI.
References checked August 31, 2026
- Google: Expert Intelligence: a new way for you to engage with trusted content
- Google Play Help: Expert Intelligence
- Gemini Notebook Help: Add or discover new sources for your notebook
Eligible books, supported languages, and participating products may change. This article summarizes information available in Google’s official announcement and help documentation as of August 31, 2026.
