I’ve been using Kindles since the first version, and here’s what Amazon got right about AI with the new Kindle Scribe
The dawn of the e-reader was a glorious moment for me after years of lugging dozens of pounds of books around to meet my bibliophile needs. Amazon’s Kindle line stood out from its early, simple text form.
Now Amazon has expanded its new Kindle Scribe with AI through some very useful and surprisingly intuitive new features. Other companies making e-readers should take note, and conveniently enough, that’s exactly what the Kindle Scribe and its AI tools are built for.
Although Amazon marketed the Kindle Scribe as an E Ink note-taking device, the e-reader’s new Active Canvas facet lets you write notes over the printed text, causing it to automatically slide around and create a sticky placement is guaranteed.
Chicken scratch refined
I’ll be the first to admit that my handwriting has never been the neatest. I’m told it’s perfect, but only for ransom notes and as a warning to children who are reluctant to practice their handwriting. It only gets worse when I take quick notes during a speech or interview. Trying to decipher it after the fact is as much an art as it is a science, but the Kindle Scribe seems to have no trouble turning handwritten notes, even messy ones, into readable text that’s much easier to read.
As someone who has always preferred taking notes by hand over typing or transcribing audio, that’s a big deal. The AI retains the charm of handwriting while remaining useful. It’s a quiet deployment of AI, but a sign that Amazon knows what Kindle Scribe users actually want from AI tools.
From distributed to summarized
If you take a lot of notes, just because they are readable doesn’t mean you have them organized. That’s why the AI summarization feature for the new Kindle Scribe is so compelling. As a reporter, I can read and take notes on a PDF announcement for a new product, then take notes on the speech a company’s CEO gives when it’s unveiled, and further write my comments on what I think about testing the product . The Kindle Scribe can distill the scattered notes written over many hours or days into a neat paragraph or two.
The AI may not always extract the most relevant points from the notes. There may be some extraneous bits left behind or valuable data omitted, but from what I’ve seen, at least, that’s not a major problem with the Kindle Scribe’s AI. As a student, I would happily have paid through the nose for such a trait.
Once again, Amazon uses AI in the Kindle Scribe to maintain the appeal of digital note-taking while keeping things simple and streamlined. For a digital reader and notebook, you don’t need an abundance of options and an abundance of possibilities with AI. Improving core writing and reading experiences with AI isn’t a gimmick.
If the AI wearables competing for sales this year had such a clear utility, they might not struggle in the marketplace. You may not think you need handwriting refinement and note summarization, but it’s hard to imagine giving them up once you start using them. Amazon’s AI may not be smarter than its competitors, but it certainly uses it more intelligently in this case.