Tools pair e-books with AI chatbots, allowing readers to ask questions about characters, historical settings and philosophical concepts.
Imagine a world where you could ask a book a question as you read it. That’s the pitch from a wave of new AI tools letting readers do exactly that.
“You are dealing with a book as if it is a living object — it’s totally different,” says Ahmed Kamel, CEO of Sinai.ai, a platform now in testing.
These tools pair e-books or audiobooks with AI chatbots, allowing readers to ask questions about characters, historical settings, philosophical concepts or plot developments without leaving the text. French startup My Smart Book launched a similar service in April, while Amazon has introduced “Ask a Question” for Audible and “Ask this Book” for Kindle. AI voice company ElevenLabs has also unveiled “ElevenReader Voice Chat,” which it says turns books into two-way conversations.
The rapid growth of these tools has also raised copyright concerns. Sinai.ai says it only works with books in the public domain or titles approved by authors, publishers or estates.
Another company, iChatbook, takes a different approach. Instead of using the original text, its AI extracts key ideas and explains them in simpler language, a model founder Brian Yang believes could be especially useful for students while avoiding many copyright issues.
Not all platforms follow the same rules. Services such as Myreader allow users to upload copyrighted books and connect them to AI tools, while Google’s NotebookLM, recently rebranded as Gemini Notebook, and BookWorm AI also do not screen uploaded material for copyright.
Sinai.ai says it has created an “AI rights” system that pays authors and publishers when chatbots use their works. The company also says it is in talks with several of the “Big Five” U.S. publishers — Hachette, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Macmillan.
“I can clearly say at least that we are in active communications with almost four of the top five,” Kamel said. “We signed with many publishers in the U.S., big names in the Middle East. Things are moving very rapidly.”
Not everyone welcomes the technology. In December, the Authors Guild criticized Amazon’s “Ask this Book” feature, arguing that it was not licensed, generated no new income for authors or publishers and did not allow rights holders to opt in or opt out, warning that it set “a dangerous precedent.”
