New “Ask This Book” AI Feature Added to Kindle iOS App

Amazon has added a new AI feature to the Kindle iOS app that lets you ask questions about the book you’re currently reading, and it will give spoiler-free answers about the plot, characters and other details up to the point that you’ve read.

The new “Ask This Book” feature is currently only available on the Kindle iOS app in the US, and it’s expected to come to Kindle ereaders and the Kindle Android app in 2026.

As you’d expect, the feature does require an active internet connection to work. To try it out just highlight a word or phrase to bring up the on-screen menu and select “Ask” to use the feature. From there you can select to have the term explained or type a question to ask.

By default it will only provide answers up to the point where you’ve read so it won’t contain spoilers, but there’s the option to switch it to provide answers from the full book as well. There’s also the option to view a chat history of all the questions you’ve asked. These automatically get deleted after 90 days, or you can delete them manually.

Some people are going to automatically hate the idea of this new feature since it uses AI, and it seems like Amazon went out of their way to not use that term in their press release, but that’s what it is so there’s no use hiding from it. The problem with AI is it should mean “automated information”, not “artificial intelligence”. There’s nothing artificial or intelligent about it. It’s just another tool for gathering information, and you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

It’s kind of like the X-Ray feature that Kindles have had for a long time, but it’s easier to find information quickly and you can be more specific about what you’re trying to find.

Amazon says the new “Ask This Book” feature is enabled on “thousands of English-language best-selling Kindle books”. Considering there are over 10 million Kindle ebooks available now it doesn’t sound like very many have access to this feature yet.