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Amazon has launched a new AI feature in the Kindle app that gives spoiler-free answers to questions about the book you’re reading and confirmed that authors can’t opt out from the feature.
The company calls Ask this Book an “expert reading assistant” in its announcement and says that it’s capable of answering questions about “plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements,” all while avoiding spoilers by limiting its answers to content from the pages you’ve read so far. It’s essentially an in-book chatbot, accessible from the book menu or by highlighting a passage of text you want to ask about.
Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta told Publishers Lunch that the answers are “non-shareable and non-copyable” and only available to readers who’ve purchased or rented books. Iraheta also said that the feature is always on, noting that “there is no option for authors or publishers to opt titles out.”
Asking a question takes you into a dedicated chatbot interface. GIF: Amazon
First announced in September, the option is available now for thousands of English-language books in the US on iOS. Amazon says it will roll out to Kindle devices and the Android app next year, though they didn’t give a timeline for an expansion beyond the US or to additional languages. It joins Kindle’s AI-powered Recaps feature for book series, but arrives only days after Amazon was forced to pull error-filled AI recaps from Prime Video.