When Amazon announced new Kindles, I braced for the introduction of AI. Surely the company that first helped bring AI assistants to the mainstream with Alexa wouldn't miss its chance to push that technology into the e-reader market it dominates. I was wrong.
As a member of the press, I was given access to the specs for the new devices ahead of the event and was surprised to see no mention of AI. Rather, the updates to the all-new Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Colorsoft focused on improvements to the existing product, such as making them thinner and lighter, adding a seamless edge-to-edge display that eliminates the raised border, or having books open up to 30 percent faster.
As I scrolled through my social feeds the next morning, I saw endless content on the new colorful Kindles, which now come in fun, bright colorways like Ube and Seaglass Green. Media sentiment and comments reflected that the new Kindles delivered on two fronts: they addressed users' most common complaints and continued to give people a break from the connected world.
The opening paragraph of the Amazon blog acknowledges its users' desire to be offline, saying, "Kindle has seen double-digit growth globally for three consecutive years with more than 720 billion pages read in 2025 alone. With notifications, texts, and emails competing for our attention, distraction-free reading isn’t slowing down—it’s accelerating."
In today's day and age, not including any AI is itself a decision about AI, as many companies feel pressure to hop on the AI bandwagon, even when it involves disregarding the product's core mission or what the audience wants. Kudos to Amazon for not falling into the trap, despite having the technology to do it.
All that said, many Amazon Echo users would likely welcome an AI update to that popular product line, and if and when it arrives this fall, we'll certainly cover it.
Our Deeper View
I have written about AI encroaching on creativity, and that is especially felt in the literary space. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish text online written by AI versus what's written by humans. As a result, for people like me who enjoy quality reads from humans, Kindle is often seen as a safe haven to curl up with classic literature or a book by a respected author who would never outsource their writing to AI. I can't imagine having that experience tainted by AI features that could introduce unnecessary friction. That's a major reason I insist on using physical copies of books. The Kindle has gained a loyal user base because it is the closest at mimicking the experience of having a book in hand without the additional frills. And in a world where AI slop is proliferating, it is refreshing to see tech that solves a practical problem, like making reading more portable and convenient, without watering down the experience with unnecessary AI features.