Google Adds Hundreds of Free Textbooks to Gemini Notebook, with S Chand Publishing Among Indian Providers

Google has added a catalogue of hundreds of textbooks to Gemini Notebook, its AI-powered research and study workspace, and made them available to students in India and the United States at no charge. Among the providers are New Delhi-based S Chand Publishing, along with open-access libraries OpenStax and Open Textbook Library.

The move, announced on 30 October 2026, puts curriculum material from an Indian school and higher-education publisher directly inside a mainstream generative AI study tool, a step that could shape how Indian students revise, self-test and prepare for exams.

Answers grounded in the textbook, with citations

Once a student adds a textbook to a notebook, Gemini’s responses are grounded in that book’s content, with inline citations and direct links back to the relevant passage. Google is positioning this as a way to keep AI answers anchored to trusted course material rather than to the open web.

Students can also turn a textbook into personalised study material, including study guides, practice quizzes and flashcards. To access the catalogue, users select “Add sources” within a notebook and choose “Textbooks” to browse what is available, without having to locate or upload files themselves.

Part of Google’s Expert Intelligence push

The textbook catalogue extends Expert Intelligence, a cross-Google initiative introduced last month that lets users bring trusted sources into Google’s AI products. At launch, Expert Intelligence allowed users to add eligible ebooks purchased from Google Play Books to Gemini Notebook, drawing on more than 100,000 titles from major publishers. The new textbook layer is aimed squarely at students and their coursework.

Why it matters for Indian classrooms

Covers shown by Google include S Chand titles for school subjects such as science, social sciences, English, and ICSE history and civics, alongside OpenStax university texts in physics, calculus and biology. For Indian learners, the inclusion of a domestic publisher means AI-assisted revision can be tied to the textbooks they actually study from, rather than generic content.

The development also adds to a fast-moving debate in Indian education about how generative AI should sit alongside the curriculum. Schools and universities are revising rules on AI use in classrooms and exams, while publishers are building their own digital platforms. Source-grounded answers with citations address one of educators’ main concerns, which is AI tools producing confident but unverified responses.

Open questions remain for schools and parents, including how many Indian titles and boards the catalogue will eventually cover, whether regional-language textbooks will follow, and how teachers can use the tool within existing assessment norms. Google has not yet detailed the full list of Indian titles available.

Image: Google