Amazon’s new Kindle characteristic is among the first helpful AI options I’ve seen

Amazon is rolling out a brand-new characteristic throughout its Kindle e-reader line within the US: a ‘Recaps’ device for shortly getting in control on whichever digital e book you’ve got been selecting away at.

Particularly, Recaps makes use of a mix of artificial intelligence (GenAI) and Amazon moderators to offer storyline and character arc refreshers on a per-book foundation. These quick recaps work throughout each bought and borrowed Kindle ebooks, as long as the piece of literary work in query is written within the English language.

“By including a brand new stage of comfort to collection studying, the Recaps characteristic permits readers to dive deeper into complicated worlds and characters with out shedding the enjoyment of discovery, all whereas guaranteeing an uninterrupted studying expertise throughout each style,” says Amazon in a blog post.

In line with the corporate, the brand new Recaps characteristic is now broadly out there throughout all Kindle gadgets inside the US. The iOS and iPadOS cell Kindle app will likely be up to date to include the characteristic “quickly,” however there is no phrase on if and when the Android model of the app will likely be up to date so as to add help.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon’s first-party Kindle app for downloading and studying all of your favourite ebooks throughout your cell gadgets.

This new Kindle Recaps characteristic represents a genuinely helpful AI use case

I simply hope Amazon’s AI tech has the chops to ship passable abstract outcomes

Pocket-lint / Amazon

Till now, I have been pretty essential of most purposes and have units that depend on artifical intelligence to get the job finished. Whether or not we’re speaking about agentic (suppose: digital assistant bots) or GenAI (suppose: generative picture creation instruments) merchandise, I’ve struggled to include AI into my every day workflow to any significant diploma.

Each on occasion, nevertheless, I will run right into a hyper-specific AI answer that merely clicks for me. Lately, these have included Apple’s excellent Clean Up tool, in addition to Google’s fantastic Pixel Call Screen feature. Whereas I’ve but to strive it out for myself, I’ve a hunch that Amazon’s new Racaps characteristic for Kindle will fall into this coveted class for me.

Amazon likens Recaps to the “Beforehand on…” phase earlier than a TV present, and I feel that is an apt comparability. As a sluggish and on-again-off-again reader, I are inclined to lose monitor of plot factors and sure character developments once I lastly hunker all the way down to proceed a e book wherever I left off. Assuming Recaps’ AI and human moderation combo is reasonably accurate and in a position to ship strong summaries, I can see myself utilizing the characteristic often,

From my perspective, AI instruments ought to work within the background, and they need to remedy issues proactively and with out the necessity for a lot person enter. They should not intention to unravel issues that do not exist, and they need to seamlessly combine into current workflows with out a steep studying curve. At first blush, Amazon’s Recaps characteristic seems to suit the invoice.

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Unsurprisingly, Amazon is wholeheartedly embracing AI

The corporate’s new Alexa+ digital assistant is infused with synthetic intelligence

Amazon

It ought to come as no shock that Amazon is making an attempt to infuse synthetic intelligence into its Kindle e-reader ecosystem. The corporate seems to be all-in on AI, embracing the tech in its recently announced next-gen Alexa+ digital assistant.

Huge tech corporations from throughout the trade are vying for a slice of the AI pie, regardless of considerations over waning shopper curiosity ranges, and the potential for a dot-com-style bubble-bursting scenario going down sooner or later.

Amazon’s AI prowess has but to be absolutely put via its paces — whether or not we’re speaking about Alexa+ or the brand new Recaps characteristic for Kindle, the corporate is definitely working in a cut-throat market. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, and others are all closely invested in cracking open the buyer AI market by way of large language models (LLMs) and the like.

I am nonetheless not satisfied that chatbots or generative image-creator purposes are the revelation tech corporations make them out to be. Smaller-scale instruments like Kindle Recaps, alternatively, are precisely the type of sprinkling of AI that I feel clients will truly make use of and respect.

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