Talk To Books

What is Talk To Books?

Talk To Books is an experimental platform from Google that lets you explore ideas and discover books in a new way. You type in a statement or question, and the tool uses AI language models to surface passages from books that relate to what you entered — matching by meaning rather than keywords.

Launched in 2018, it attracted millions of users and demonstrated how effectively neural language models can perform semantic matching and information retrieval.

Who created Talk To Books?

Talk To Books was developed by a team of engineers and researchers at Google who wanted to test what neural language models could do. The experiment’s success led Google to apply similar language models in other products, including Google Shopping, Maps, and Gmail.

What is Talk To Books used for?

• Discovering books and ideas: Stumble upon new books and explore concepts you’re curious about.
• Conversational search: Ask a question or make a statement to engage directly with book content.
• Natural language search: Search the way you speak, thanks to natural language processing.
• Semantic matching: Find intuitive, meaning-based results rather than keyword matches.
• Research support: Access a large volume of book content to enhance research.
• Reading recommendations: Get suggestions for what to read next based on your queries.
• Finding new authors: Discover writers and content through AI-powered search.

The tool also served as proof of concept for the language models that later powered features in Google Shopping, Maps, Gmail, Hangouts, and other products.

Who is Talk To Books for?

• Writers: Find inspiration and research topics.
• Researchers: Uncover relevant passages and connections across many books.
• Academic professionals: Useful for literature reviews and exploring scholarly ideas.
• Students: Explore subjects and find sources for study.
• Curious readers: Anyone who wants a new way to interact with books and ideas.

Why it matters

Talk To Books offers a different approach to finding information: instead of scanning titles or keyword results, you browse actual passages matched to your question. It remains a notable example of how AI can change how we access and connect with written content.