Google announced Expert Intelligence on August 27, 2026, a cross-company initiative that lets users incorporate insights from books, publications, and domain experts directly into Gemini Notebook. The feature launches with more than 100,000 books from major publishers and will expand to the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search.
What was announced
Expert Intelligence is a new product layer across Google's AI offerings. Users who have purchased eligible ebooks through Google Play Books can now add those titles to a Gemini Notebook and ask questions grounded in the book's content. The system generates responses with direct citations to the source material.
Google published the announcement on its official blog, authored by Steven Johnson, Editorial Director at Google Labs, and Will Houghteling, Director of Product Management for Expert Intelligence.
What changed
Before this launch, Gemini Notebook could work with user-uploaded documents and web sources. Expert Intelligence adds a structured, publisher-licensed content layer. Users can now query specific books they own alongside their own notes and other sources, combining multiple expert voices in a single notebook.
The key distinction is the licensing model: users must own the book through Google Play Books to interact with it. When a notebook is shared, collaborators are prompted to purchase their own copy before they can access the book's content within the notebook.
Details and availability
Expert Intelligence launches with more than 100,000 books from six major publishers: Bloomsbury, De Gruyter Brill, Johns Hopkins University Press, Macmillan Publishers, O'Reilly Media, and Penguin Random House.
Google also worked with more than 15 bestselling authors — including Steven Pinker, Michael Pollan, and Jennifer Wallace — to create Featured Notebooks that supplement their books with additional sources and generated artifacts such as infographics, audio overviews, and quizzes.
Users can check whether a book is eligible by visiting its Google Play Books detail page and looking for the Gemini Notebook option under the "Tools" badge. The feature is available to users in the U.S., and Google is offering a free book to new users while supplies last.
Expansion to AI Mode in Search
Google confirmed that Expert Intelligence will extend beyond Gemini Notebook. The announcement states that the company plans to bring Expert Intelligence-enabled content to the Gemini app and to AI Mode in Google Search. The timeline for that expansion was not specified.
The company also said that users will eventually be able to add third-party subscriptions, business research reports, and textbooks as sources within the system.
Context
Expert Intelligence arrives as Google and other AI companies face ongoing questions about how they source and attribute content in AI-generated responses. The model Google is using here — requiring users to own licensed content before the AI can query it — differs from the approach used in AI Overviews and AI Mode, which draw from the open web.
Google framed the initiative as a content discovery tool for authors and publishers, stating that it expects Expert Intelligence to "create content discovery and help authors reach new and more engaged readers" over time. The publisher quotes included in the announcement, from Penguin Random House's CEO and bestselling authors, emphasize the partnership model rather than licensing concerns.
What has not been confirmed
Google did not provide a timeline for the AI Mode in Search expansion. The announcement does not specify whether Expert Intelligence content in Search will follow the same ownership-verification model or use a different access framework. It is also unclear how this initiative interacts with existing publisher controls for Google's AI products, such as the opt-out mechanisms available for AI Overviews.
The blog post does not address whether Expert Intelligence will affect how publisher content ranks or surfaces in organic search results or AI-generated answers.
Sources
- Expert Intelligence: a new way for you to engage with trusted content — Google Blog, August 27, 2026
