diff --git a/docs/tutorials/ibis-for-sql-users.qmd b/docs/tutorials/ibis-for-sql-users.qmd
index 8da534f0a0d2..577f7b015111 100644
--- a/docs/tutorials/ibis-for-sql-users.qmd
+++ b/docs/tutorials/ibis-for-sql-users.qmd
@@ -600,7 +600,7 @@ In many other situations, you can use constants without having to use
 but the number 5 like so:
 
 ```{python}
-expr = t3.mutate(number5=5)
+expr = t3.mutate(number5=ibis.literal(5))
 ibis.to_sql(expr)
 ```
 
diff --git a/ibis/backends/dask/tests/test_window.py b/ibis/backends/dask/tests/test_window.py
index d48fb4a46e95..ef2249dd099d 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/dask/tests/test_window.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/dask/tests/test_window.py
@@ -382,7 +382,7 @@ def test_mutate_scalar_with_window_after_join(npartitions):
 
     joined = left.outer_join(right, left.ints == right.group)
     proj = joined[left, right.value]
-    expr = proj.mutate(sum=proj.value.sum(), const=1)
+    expr = proj.mutate(sum=proj.value.sum(), const=ibis.literal(1))
     result = expr.execute()
     result = result.sort_values(["ints", "value"]).reset_index(drop=True)
     expected = (
diff --git a/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_join.py b/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_join.py
index cddedbfebb3b..a7a2e8e5d5be 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_join.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_join.py
@@ -506,7 +506,7 @@ def test_mutate_after_join():
         q_count=joined["q_count"].fillna(0),
         p_density=joined.p_density.fillna(1e-10),
         q_density=joined.q_density.fillna(1e-10),
-        features="Order_Priority",
+        features=ibis.literal("Order_Priority"),
     )
 
     expected = pd.DataFrame(
diff --git a/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_window.py b/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_window.py
index bc7d53b6fc90..791f29133abb 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_window.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/pandas/tests/test_window.py
@@ -391,7 +391,7 @@ def test_mutate_scalar_with_window_after_join():
 
     joined = left.outer_join(right, left.ints == right.group)
     proj = joined[left, right.value]
-    expr = proj.mutate(sum=proj.value.sum(), const=1)
+    expr = proj.mutate(sum=proj.value.sum(), const=ibis.literal(1))
     result = expr.execute()
     expected = pd.DataFrame(
         {
diff --git a/ibis/backends/tests/sql/test_sql.py b/ibis/backends/tests/sql/test_sql.py
index 6c9cc788a4e4..1f9e95542e12 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/tests/sql/test_sql.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/tests/sql/test_sql.py
@@ -390,7 +390,7 @@ def test_mutate_filter_join_no_cross_join(snapshot):
         [("person_id", "int64"), ("birth_datetime", "timestamp")],
         name="person",
     )
-    mutated = person.mutate(age=400)
+    mutated = person.mutate(age=ibis.literal(400))
     expr = mutated.filter(mutated.age <= 40)[mutated.person_id]
 
     snapshot.assert_match(to_sql(expr), "out.sql")
diff --git a/ibis/backends/tests/test_client.py b/ibis/backends/tests/test_client.py
index 361d216c0778..f855033fe99c 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/tests/test_client.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/tests/test_client.py
@@ -1214,7 +1214,7 @@ def test_create_table_timestamp(con, temp_table):
     reason="Feature is not yet implemented: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE",
 )
 def test_persist_expression_ref_count(backend, con, alltypes):
-    non_persisted_table = alltypes.mutate(test_column="calculation")
+    non_persisted_table = alltypes.mutate(test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"))
     persisted_table = non_persisted_table.cache()
 
     op = non_persisted_table.op()
@@ -1239,7 +1239,9 @@ def test_persist_expression_ref_count(backend, con, alltypes):
     reason="Feature is not yet implemented: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE",
 )
 def test_persist_expression(backend, alltypes):
-    non_persisted_table = alltypes.mutate(test_column="calculation", other_calc="xyz")
+    non_persisted_table = alltypes.mutate(
+        test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"), other_calc=ibis.literal("xyz")
+    )
     persisted_table = non_persisted_table.cache()
     backend.assert_frame_equal(
         non_persisted_table.to_pandas(), persisted_table.to_pandas()
@@ -1259,7 +1261,7 @@ def test_persist_expression(backend, alltypes):
 )
 def test_persist_expression_contextmanager(backend, alltypes):
     non_cached_table = alltypes.mutate(
-        test_column="calculation", other_column="big calc"
+        test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"), other_column=ibis.literal("big calc")
     )
     with non_cached_table.cache() as cached_table:
         backend.assert_frame_equal(
@@ -1280,7 +1282,7 @@ def test_persist_expression_contextmanager(backend, alltypes):
 )
 def test_persist_expression_contextmanager_ref_count(backend, con, alltypes):
     non_cached_table = alltypes.mutate(
-        test_column="calculation", other_column="big calc 2"
+        test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"), other_column=ibis.literal("big calc 2")
     )
     op = non_cached_table.op()
     with non_cached_table.cache() as cached_table:
@@ -1304,7 +1306,7 @@ def test_persist_expression_contextmanager_ref_count(backend, con, alltypes):
 @mark.notimpl(["exasol"], reason="Exasol does not support temporary tables")
 def test_persist_expression_multiple_refs(backend, con, alltypes):
     non_cached_table = alltypes.mutate(
-        test_column="calculation", other_column="big calc 2"
+        test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"), other_column=ibis.literal("big calc 2")
     )
     op = non_cached_table.op()
     with non_cached_table.cache() as cached_table:
@@ -1345,7 +1347,7 @@ def test_persist_expression_multiple_refs(backend, con, alltypes):
 )
 def test_persist_expression_repeated_cache(alltypes):
     non_cached_table = alltypes.mutate(
-        test_column="calculation", other_column="big calc 2"
+        test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"), other_column=ibis.literal("big calc 2")
     )
     with non_cached_table.cache() as cached_table:
         with cached_table.cache() as nested_cached_table:
@@ -1374,7 +1376,7 @@ def test_persist_expression_repeated_cache(alltypes):
 )
 def test_persist_expression_release(con, alltypes):
     non_cached_table = alltypes.mutate(
-        test_column="calculation", other_column="big calc 3"
+        test_column=ibis.literal("calculation"), other_column=ibis.literal("big calc 3")
     )
     cached_table = non_cached_table.cache()
     cached_table.release()
diff --git a/ibis/backends/tests/test_generic.py b/ibis/backends/tests/test_generic.py
index f7d040eaab4c..1013bfb7c7b4 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/tests/test_generic.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/tests/test_generic.py
@@ -785,7 +785,7 @@ def test_uncorrelated_subquery(backend, batting, batting_df):
 
 
 def test_int_column(alltypes):
-    expr = alltypes.mutate(x=1).x
+    expr = alltypes.mutate(x=ibis.literal(1)).x
     result = expr.execute()
     assert expr.type() == dt.int8
     assert result.dtype == np.int8
diff --git a/ibis/backends/tests/test_temporal.py b/ibis/backends/tests/test_temporal.py
index 19341a8c9b07..f8b457a20200 100644
--- a/ibis/backends/tests/test_temporal.py
+++ b/ibis/backends/tests/test_temporal.py
@@ -1236,7 +1236,7 @@ def test_interval_add_cast_column(backend, alltypes, df):
         ),
         param(
             lambda t: (
-                t.mutate(suffix="%d")
+                t.mutate(suffix=ibis.literal("%d"))
                 .select(formatted=lambda t: t.timestamp_col.strftime("%Y%m" + t.suffix))
                 .formatted
             ),
diff --git a/ibis/expr/tests/test_newrels.py b/ibis/expr/tests/test_newrels.py
index 35e6d80a18df..6da1ed32d5c6 100644
--- a/ibis/expr/tests/test_newrels.py
+++ b/ibis/expr/tests/test_newrels.py
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@ def test_mutate():
 def test_mutate_overwrites_existing_column():
     t = ibis.table(dict(a="string", b="string"))
 
-    mut = t.mutate(a=42)
+    mut = t.mutate(a=ibis.literal(42))
     assert mut.op() == Project(parent=t, values={"a": ibis.literal(42), "b": t.b})
 
     sel = mut.select("a")
diff --git a/ibis/expr/types/relations.py b/ibis/expr/types/relations.py
index 2ed909a383ef..716d38d4f956 100644
--- a/ibis/expr/types/relations.py
+++ b/ibis/expr/types/relations.py
@@ -95,9 +95,9 @@ def f(  # noqa: D417
 
 # TODO(kszucs): should use (table, *args, **kwargs) instead to avoid interpreting
 # nested inputs
-def bind(table: Table, value: Any, prefer_column=True) -> Iterator[ir.Value]:
+def bind(table: Table, value: Any) -> Iterator[ir.Value]:
     """Bind a value to a table expression."""
-    if prefer_column and type(value) in (str, int):
+    if type(value) in (str, int):
         yield table._get_column(value)
     elif isinstance(value, ValueExpr):
         yield value
@@ -110,11 +110,11 @@ def bind(table: Table, value: Any, prefer_column=True) -> Iterator[ir.Value]:
         yield from value.expand(table)
     elif isinstance(value, Mapping):
         for k, v in value.items():
-            for val in bind(table, v, prefer_column=prefer_column):
+            for val in bind(table, v):
                 yield val.name(k)
     elif util.is_iterable(value):
         for v in value:
-            yield from bind(table, v, prefer_column=prefer_column)
+            yield from bind(table, v)
     elif isinstance(value, ops.Value):
         # TODO(kszucs): from certain builders, like ir.GroupedTable we pass
         # operation nodes instead of expressions to table methods, it would
@@ -1946,7 +1946,7 @@ def mutate(self, *exprs: Sequence[ir.Expr] | None, **mutations: ir.Value) -> Tab
         # string and integer inputs are going to be coerced to literals instead
         # of interpreted as column references like in select
         node = self.op()
-        values = bind(self, (exprs, mutations), prefer_column=False)
+        values = bind(self, (exprs, mutations))
         values = unwrap_aliases(values)
         # allow overriding of fields, hence the mutation behavior
         values = {**node.fields, **values}
@@ -3359,7 +3359,8 @@ def cache(self) -> Table:
         >>> import ibis
         >>> ibis.options.interactive = True
         >>> t = ibis.examples.penguins.fetch()
-        >>> cached_penguins = t.mutate(computation="Heavy Computation").cache()
+        >>> heavy_computation = ibis.literal("Heavy Computation")
+        >>> cached_penguins = t.mutate(computation=heavy_computation).cache()
         >>> cached_penguins
         ┏━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━┓
         ┃ species ┃ island    ┃ bill_length_mm ┃ bill_depth_mm ┃ flipper_length_mm ┃ … ┃
@@ -3381,7 +3382,7 @@ def cache(self) -> Table:
 
         Explicit cache cleanup
 
-        >>> with t.mutate(computation="Heavy Computation").cache() as cached_penguins:
+        >>> with t.mutate(computation=heavy_computation).cache() as cached_penguins:
         ...     cached_penguins
         ┏━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━┓
         ┃ species ┃ island    ┃ bill_length_mm ┃ bill_depth_mm ┃ flipper_length_mm ┃ … ┃
diff --git a/ibis/tests/expr/test_table.py b/ibis/tests/expr/test_table.py
index 7d6f1dd191e3..627c227cab66 100644
--- a/ibis/tests/expr/test_table.py
+++ b/ibis/tests/expr/test_table.py
@@ -292,15 +292,15 @@ def test_mutate(table):
             table.b.sum().name("x2"),
             (_.a + 2).name("x3"),
             lambda _: (_.a + 3).name("x4"),
-            4,
-            "five",
+            ibis.literal(4),
+            ibis.literal("five"),
         ],
         kw1=(table.a + 6),
         kw2=table.b.sum(),
         kw3=(_.a + 7),
         kw4=lambda _: (_.a + 8),
-        kw5=9,
-        kw6="ten",
+        kw5=ibis.literal(9),
+        kw6=ibis.literal("ten"),
     )
     expected = table[
         table,