It’s no surprise when we find out Google is adding its Gemini AI to another Android app, and this week it’s the turn of Google Play Books — the e-book reader app and store you probably don’t use.

According to an APK teardown by Android Authority, Google may be looking to include its Gemini digital assistant in its e-book reading app within the next few versions.

Gemini could be coming to Play Books soon

As ever, this sort of rumor stems from a single line of code in a beta build.

<string name="selection_menu_reader_insights">Ask Gemini</string>

This unassuming sentence is a sign that Google is planning on adding an “Ask Gemini” feature to Play Books. Android Authority managed to get the feature to show up in dialog boxes, but were unable to get it to trigger.

While we can’t say for sure what Gemini will do in Play Books, but it’s very likely it will be used as a more powerful version of the already-existing Define tool. Gemini would be able to offer contextual analysis of a selection of text, and pair that knowledge up with other sources from around the internet.

Of course, one of the major issues would be whether it would be able to avoid spoilers or not, as that would be a pretty crucial need for any fiction book. If not, it might be best to avoid this for anything other than academic or non-fiction books. Or, if you use Play Books for cataloging your PDF collection, then Gemini could be a big help for finding information in clusters of data.

rubaitul-azad-play-books-unsplash

Source: Rubaitul Azad/Unsplash

We’ve been a little unfair to Google Play Books by pretending nobody uses it. In fact, Jon Gilbert celebrated Play Books when it hit its 15th birthday just a few days ago, naming it as the best of Google’s app portfolio.

While that’s a highly personal call, there’s no doubt Play Books is one of the more underappreciated of Google’s apps. Perhaps by adding Gemini to it, Google will be able to supercharge it to the point where it shifts into the public eye a bit more. Gemini would be a powerful analysis tool for anyone, and adding it to your e-book reader is a big jump in usefulness.