Is the Book as We Know It About To Get a Radical Upgrade?

On Aug. 18 at 5pm ET, join Steven Johnson (author and Google Labs editorial director) and Ethan Mollick (Wharton AI expert) for a can't-miss conversation about the future of writing and reading.

A few weeks back, our friend

Steven Johnson

floated an audacious theory in the pages of the New York Times Magazine. If he’s right, the very definition of the book is about to be rewritten.

Steven has a unique vantage point on the topic. If you attended his Author Insider workshop, then you’ll know he is a dual citizen. One of his passports says “writer”; the other, “technologist.” He is the celebrated author of more than a dozen books—including Everything Bad Is Good for You, Where Good Ideas Come From, and Extra Life—And he’s also the editorial director of Google Labs, the tech giant’s moonshot incubator, where he is spearheading the development of NotebookLM, an AI-powered research assistant that lets users upload documents (research materials, notes, drafts, even whole books) and have open-ended conversations with them.

In that interview with the Times, he imagined a future where new books are sold not just in hardback, e-book, and audio formats, but also as AI notebooks. With the latter, readers would have access to the “linear version of the story with chapters,” Steven says, but they’d also be able to engage with the writer's source materials, so that “instead of just a bibliography, you have a live collection of all the original sources.” Readers could ask clarifying questions, construct timelines and mind maps, and even transform the book into a podcast.

We can’t stop discussing Steven’s vision of the future and its ramifications for writers, so we decided to schedule a live session where he can talk with us (and you) about it.

Steven will be joined by

Ethan Mollick

, who brings his own formidable perspective to the conversation. Ethan is a professor at Wharton, where he studies the effects of artificial intelligence on work, entrepreneurship, and education. His 2024 book, Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, was an instant New York Times bestseller, and his Substack, One Useful Thing, has more than 340,000 subscribers. Time Magazine named him to its list of the 100 most influential people in AI. Ezra Klein calls him the “perfect guide” if you want to use AI to make your life better.

Together, they'll explore:

• What does the “AI-native book” look like?

• How will this change the craft of writing and research?

• What new opportunities does this create for writers, readers, and publishers?

This is a glimpse into the next chapter of storytelling, and it’s only open to paid subscribers. Not a paid subscriber? Sign up today to secure your spot:

If you’re already a paid subscriber, you can RSVP here: