The Kindle app for iOS has features your aging Kindle doesn’t

Amazon is going all out to bring artificial intelligence to your reading experience, adding several new smart features to its popular Kindle e-readers. Officially announced in June 2026, the conglomerate touts its AI add-ons as “making it easier to stay immersed in your books” by offering spoiler-free recaps and AI assistants that can bring context to your reading experience. When combined with your Kindle’s previous smart features, which let users do everything from looking up definitions to translating foreign languages, the rollout is indicative of a publishing landscape looking for new ways to integrate emerging technologies into your reading experience, whether you asked for it or not.

Unfortunately, not all readers will have access to Kindle’s AI infusion. As it stands, Amazon has rolled out its new recap features to new Kindle devices and US iOS users. However, its Ask this Book AI chatbot will for now only be available on the US version of its iOS Kindle app. Kindles will receive the Ask this Book feature later this year. Likewise, this book’s recap and query features are expected to be available on Android apps by the end of 2026.

These additions come as Amazon pushes users toward newer models of their flagship e-reader. Earlier this year, the Seattle company announced that it would stop supporting its early Kindle models. To ease concerns, Kindle assured users that their older models would continue to work. However, users will not be able to import new titles into their libraries.

Along the same lines, Amazon won’t be offering its latest feature update on its older Kindle models. Instead, the pop-up tools will only be available for Kindles released in 2024 or later. With this in mind, the phone app proves a useful workaround, allowing readers to test whether the AI ​​functionality is really worth upgrading.

Amazon is touting its new Recaps features as something akin to “previously aired…” segments of popular TV shows. Readers can seamlessly return to their favorite series without missing a beat with “quick reminders” of previous episodes, including key plot points and character developments. It’s important to note that these recaps are anything but spoiler-free. As someone who judges those who skip to the end of the book, the thought of accidentally reading a recap of a book I haven’t yet devoured sends shivers down my spine. Proceed with caution.

Readers can find out if recaps are available for their favorite series in their Kindle and iOS apps. If you’re using your e-reader, simply visit the series page in your Kindle library and select the “Show Recaps” button above the books listed. From there, select the book you want a reminder about. You can also select “Show Summaries” via the three-dot menu in the upper right corner of your screen. If you’re using your phone, the same option will appear once you select and maintain the group of books in your library.

A new addition to Recaps’ features is Amazon’s Story So Far feature, which allows readers to receive spoiler-free summaries “tailored to your current position in the story.” US users can access this feature on all Kindle Scribe devices, as well as all Kindles, Kindle Colorsofts, or Kindle Paperwhites released in 2024 or later. Readers married to their older Kindle products can access the upgrade through the iOS app.

It is important to note that these updates are not available for all Kindle books. To find out if your reading is included in the “thousands of best-selling English e-books” eligible for Amazon’s latest feature, look for the “Read Summary” button when you hold down a book in your Kindle. To access the feature while reading your book, tap the three-dot menu in the upper right corner of the screen.

A new AI assistant will be added to your reading experience. In its press release, Amazon says its chatbot, called Ask this Book, will instantly answer “questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow.” While these answers are tailored to your current place in a story, users can also query the chatbot about the entire book. You can also ask text-specific questions by highlighting passages in your Kindle.

Ask this Book is available on the Kindle iOS app for US customers. The chatbot will be extended to Amazon’s new Kindle devices and the Android OS app by the end of 2026. But not all books are eligible for the tool. To find out if your text is in the wheelhouse of Amazon’s AI tutor, simply highlight any text selection in your book, where you’ll see an “ask” symbol in addition to features like “highlight,” “search,” “copy,” and “rate.”

Users can access their Ask this Book wizard in several ways. First, you can find the feature in the app’s book menu. You can find the chatbot in your book menu or access it whenever you highlight a passage in selected text. From there, tap “ask” and a prompt of suggested questions will appear at the bottom of your screen. You can also enter your own question in the gray space below. From there, you can interact with your reading assistant exactly as you would with any chatbot.

Unsurprisingly, Amazon’s latest AI features have sparked controversy, as authors, publishing houses and readers have criticized the conglomerate for potential copyright violations. As the Authors Guild points out in a statement, Amazon did not receive prior licensing permission from authors and their publishers to include their work in its chatbot functionality. As the Guild argues, adding AI features “transforms books into interactive, searchable products, akin to enhanced e-books or annotated editions – a new format for which rights should be specifically negotiated.”

Amazon, for its part, responded to the Authors Guild by stating that Ask this Book “only uses the content of the book as a prompt”, rather than to form its underlying LLM. Amazon also noted that the feature serves as “a natural language extension of the search functionality that already exists in Kindle apps and for which no license is required,” comparing Ask this Book to the Internet searches that users perform throughout their reading process.

As it stands, authors and publishers have no control over whether or not their books are included in Amazon’s chatbot toolkit. In response to the publishing industry newsletter Editors’ lunchan Amazon spokesperson said the conglomerate does not offer the option to opt out of the tool in order to maintain “a consistent reading experience.” Additionally, Amazon’s dominance of the e-book market further limits the author’s ability to opt out of this feature, given that Amazon holds approximately three-quarters of the e-reader market. Overall, the Authors Guild said this feature “sets a dangerous precedent for the future of licensing for AI features.”

Ultimately, the controversy speaks to the ongoing legal battles raging throughout the AI ​​space. Will authors be paid for their role in the AI ​​models? Or will it simply be seen as the cost of doing business in an ever-changing e-book landscape? Regardless of your position on the subject, Amazon’s latest AI features reflect the forces shaping the next era of book publishing. Whether Amazon customers believe the benefits of AI are worth the moral ambiguity it creates will remain at the center of the debate.