Here’s what Magic Pointer processes on your Googlebook — and what goes online

Screen recognition stays local until you ask Gemini to act. Here’s what Magic Pointer processes on your Googlebook — and what goes online. Google explains when its AI cursor sends your data to the cloud.

Computing Here’s what Magic Pointer processes on your Googlebook — and what goes online Screen recognition stays local until you ask Gemini to act. Once you select something and ask Gemini to act on it, it sends the content to a cloud model. Google says the AI cursor stays inactive until you deliberately trigger it.

Google looked at one of the oldest parts of the desktop experience — the mouse cursor — and decided Gemini could make it useful for more than clicking things. The result is Magic Pointer, which can understand whatever you highlight on a Googlebook and help you act on it. That sounds incredibly handy, but it also raises a pretty important privacy question: when exactly does what’s on your screen leave your laptop and head to Google’s cloud.

Google has now explained where that line sits.