Amazon has unveiled the Kindle Translate, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven translation service tailored for the Kindle e - reader platform, with a special focus on serving KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) authors. This innovative service can automatically translate literary works, enabling authors to connect with a broader global readership.

Currently, the service is in the beta - testing phase and is being offered free of charge. However, its language support is limited at present. It only facilitates mutual translation between English and Spanish, as well as translation from German to English. Amazon has plans to gradually expand the service to cover more languages in the coming months.

Presently, less than 5% of the books available on the Kindle platform come in multilingual versions. This indicates that AI translation holds significant growth potential. Nevertheless, it's important to note that AI - generated translations may contain occasional errors.

To ensure translation quality, authors are given the opportunity to preview and review the translated content. In cases where authors are not well - versed in the target language, they are still advised to seek manual proofreading services. The system is also equipped with an automatic accuracy assessment feature for the translations, although the specific assessment method has not been made public.

For readers, the service allows them to preview a portion of the translated content before making a purchase decision. The publishing industry generally believes that while AI translation is unlikely to completely supplant manual translation in the realms of literature and novels, its application prospects within the publishing sector are indeed promising and worth keeping an eye on.