As technology evolves, e‑books have become widespread and digital reading has become the prevailing trend. Using smart tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) as reading companions, can further deepen reflection and discussion—offering readers an unprecedented, more deepened and analytical reading experience.
New Reading Trends in the AI Era
The Hong Kong government has long been committed to promoting a culture of reading. Since 2024, 23 April of the year has been designated as ‘Hong Kong Reading for All Day’. To align with the rise of digital reading, the Hong Kong Public Libraries website offers a wide range of e-resources and platforms, enabling the public to read easily anytime and anywhere. The Education Bureau has selected eBooks themed on ‘Inspirational Reading’ from the Hong Kong Public Libraries, and encourages students to read. Meanwhile, diverse mobile reading applications have developed, incorporating different interactive features that make reading more accessible, diverse and interactive.
With the widespread adoption of e-books and digital reading platforms, digital reading has become an integral part of daily life, reshaping reading habits and practices. According to the 2024 Digital Reading Report in China, the number of digital reading users reached 670 million, marking a 17.52% increase from 2023, indicating that digital reading has become an essential part of people’s daily lives. In 2025, the 26th Shenzhen Reading Month took place under the theme ‘AI Era, Love Reading’, featuring a youth roundtable titled ‘My AI Era’ to explore how technology was transforming reading habits and expanding the boundaries of reading.
AI-assisted reading for children and youth is becoming a key direction in education. In June 2025, Ministry of Education and the Publicity Department of China announced five major initiatives to enhance campus reading proficiency. Among them, the ‘Technology-Empowered Reading Innovation Project’ includes the development of ‘AI Reading Assistants’ and the ‘AI Companion Reading Program’ across primary and secondary schools. These platforms will select reading themes and content according to students’ ages, interests, abilities and developmental needs. It will also analyse students’ reading behaviours and habits and recommend personalised book lists, track their reading progress and generate detailed reports, aiming to enhance their reading efficiency and interest.
AI-Powered Deep Reading
From print to e-books, and from e-books to AI-assisted reading, the experience and meaning of reading continue to evolve. In the AI era, reading is no longer a one-way absorption of knowledge. Through generative dialogue, it fosters deeper discussion, stimulate critical thinking, and create a more interactive form of reading.
At different stages of reading, readers can make use of AI to deepen their understanding and thinking.
- Pre-reading:
(1) By leveraging digital reading materials, readers can conduct research with AI, gaining insights into the background of a work, including the political and cultural climate of its era and its impact, laying the foundation for deep reading.
(2) AI helps to distil the articles’ key points and identify complex vocabulary in advance, improving language skills while making the reading experience smoother.
(3) Utilising AI to generate book summaries enables readers to grasp the overall content and main theme, helping them understand the structure and core messages more precisely when engaging with the full text.
- During reading:
Ask AI questions related to the book content, extend thinking through interactive dialogue, and foster deeper understanding and discussion. - Post-reading:
Sharing reflections with AI and posing a series of probing questions allows readers to examine a work from multiple angles, inspiring deeper thought and reflection while strengthening analytical and critical thinking skills.
Videos on Sharing AI-Powered Reading Instruction Experiences
In the following videos, teachers share their experiences of using AI to enhance reading education, including combining innovative applications AI in libraries, and improving reading comprehension, writing support, listening training, and speaking skills.
- ‘Opponent or Assistant — When Teachers Encounter AI’ Teaching Practice Case Sharing (Chinese only)
- Teacher Professional Development: AI Empowering Language Learning: How AI is Revolutionising Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking Instruction (Chinese only)
AI-Powered Reading Online Platforms
These platforms offer AI‑powered reading tools with diverse functions, helping readers use AI to boost reading quality and deepen their reading experience.
- Recall
This platform enables direct access to e-books through web links without readers uploading files. It helps organise and summarise the content of articles, books, or videos, and includes a quiz feature that generates different types of questions to help readers evaluate their understanding of the book. Both free and paid subscription are available.
- Mindgrasp
The platform supports reading a range of documents and video files. It provides features of AI-powered notes, tutor, quizzes, web search, flashcards and more. A 3-day trial is available.
- MyReader
Various formats of files are supported. There is an AI chatroom for readers to chat with a book or even entire library, ask questions and get the summary. Other features include audiobooks, organised library and smart citations. Both free and paid subscription are available.