Bringing back the lost art of reading in the age of AI

The lost art of reading was a key concern at the Bizlitfest Hyderabad held on Saturday, as was the advance of artificial intelligence. “How do you bring young readers to books,” someone asked author and former P&G India CEO Gurucharan Das. He however, contended that “more books are being sold now than in the past”.

AI expert Kashyap Kompella, who moderated two sessions at the fest, cited a Harvard survey that found students were completing writing courses without actually reading a book.

“The reading habit has been under attack from social media content — that has become the primary mode of content consumption for young people,” he said. However, he stressed that storytelling is more important than ever. The medium may have shifted, but the human need for authentic stories has not gone away, nor going away.”

AI prompts

Vishwanath Alluri, Founder-CEO of IMI Mobile, which was sold to Cisco for $730 million and a follower of Jiddu Krishnamurti, said that the Krishnamurti Foundation had developed an app called Áwakening of Intelligence. This app uses AI to bring questions from the repository of JK’s teachings. “AI culls out wisdom from his teachings without interpretation by a third man,” Alluri said. At the same time, he said the Foundation is setting up an artisan centre in Pune, which is anti-AI if you ask me. This centre aims to get children to work with artisans using their hands because “the current generation children are going away from real things to the virtual world, social media”. The idea is to draw them back to real experiences.

Reel reality

Film producer D Suresh Babu said, “We can’t do without AI. The film industry too is beginning to use it, but I am a bit wary when it comes to relying on the output,” he said.

Vivek Anchalla, Founder of Amazing Indian Stories, who is making an all-AI feature movie, said that GenAI is disrupting filmmaking. “Now one can make a full movie using AI without having to depend on specialised VFX laboratories. AI could reduce the cost of production in filmmaking,” he said.

At the Bizlitfest, Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal won the award for the Best Entrepreneurship Book for his ‘The Startup Code’.

Published on August 2, 2025