AI Tool of the Week: this Gemini feature brings textbooks into AI learning

Summary

Gemini Notebook's textbook catalog lets students ask questions grounded in selected books, with citations to original passages, and turn chapters into study guides, quizzes and flashcards.

The AI tool we unlocked today is: Textbooks in Gemini Notebook

What problem does it solve?

If you have a child in school, you know the exam-week pattern. They ask an AI chatbot about a chapter, get a confident answer, and neither of you can tell whether it matches the book the teacher follows. The alternative is hunting for a PDF of the right edition.

Untraceable answers can cost marks, but there is a bigger problem: they teach students to trust information they cannot verify. Textbooks in Gemini Notebook addresses this gap by making the textbook itself the starting point. Instead of asking a general-purpose chatbot and hoping its answer matches the syllabus, students can select a book from a built-in catalogue and ask questions based on it. Answers come with inline citations and direct links to the original source, making it easier to check where the information comes from.

How to access

Open a notebook in Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM), choose Add sources, then Textbooks. It is free, and Google’s 29 October post says students can now access hundreds of textbooks from providers in the US and India.

What can it do?

• Skip the PDF hunt: Choose a book from the catalog instead of downloading files.
• Stay on the page: Every answer carries citations that link back to the source.
• Practise, not just read: Turn a textbook into study guides, practice quizzes and flashcards.

Example

A parent has five days before their child’s school science test and adds the school’s book through Add sources, then Textbooks.

What makes Textbooks in Gemini Notebook special?

Mint's ‘AI tool of the week’ is excerpted from Leslie D'Monte's weekly TechTalk newsletter. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your email inbox.

Jaspreet Bindra