Ask the Book is Perlego's built-in AI assistant that lives directly inside the eReader. As you read, you can ask it questions, look things up, get explanations, and navigate the text — all without leaving the page.

Think of it as a knowledgeable study companion: it's there to help you understand and engage with what you're reading, not to do the reading for you. Although, we have a tool for that too (learn more: Read Aloud).

Book availability: Ask the Book is only available on titles where the publisher has opted in. If you don't see it on a particular book, it hasn't been enabled for that title.

Learn more: how to filter your search by feature availability.

Supported devices: Ask the Book is available on web desktop and mobile browser. It is not currently available on the Perlego mobile app.

Internet connection: An active internet connection is required to use Ask the Book.

Plan eligibility: Ask the Book is available on the Complete plan only. It is not available on the Essential plan, Legacy plans, or accounts managed by an organisation.

Look for the Ask the Book panel on the right-hand side of the eReader. You can open it at any time while reading by clicking the Ask the Book icon in the reader toolbar. The panel stays alongside your book so you can read and ask questions at the same time.

Not sure if a chapter or book covers what you need? Ask the Book. It can give you a quick, objective overview of a section so you can decide whether it's worth diving into before committing your time.

Try asking:

Instead of scrolling through pages looking for a specific argument or concept, just ask for it in plain language. Ask the Book searches the full text and surfaces the most relevant sections, with direct links so you can jump straight there.

Try asking:

Encountered a term, theory, or passage that isn't clicking? Ask the Book can explain it in clearer language, drawing on the book's own content and — for definitions — verified sources like the Oxford Dictionary.

It's designed to help you understand, not just give you an answer to copy. Responses point you back to the relevant passage in the book so you can read it in full context.

Try asking:

If English isn't your first language, Ask the Book can provide a sentence-level, side-by-side translation of book text into your preferred language — helping you follow the content without losing the meaning of the original.

Try asking:

Ask the Book is designed to support your reading, not replace it. There are a few things it's deliberately set up to avoid:

It won't summarise whole books or chapters. If you ask for a full summary, it will instead help you orient yourself — giving you enough context to understand what the section is about and read it with confidence. This is intentional: the goal is to keep you engaged with the source material, not bypass it.

It won't write essays or assignments for you. Ask the Book won't produce essays, derivative works, or bulk content based on a book. It's a reading aid, not a writing service.

It won't translate entire books. Translation is available at the sentence or passage level to support comprehension, not to reproduce the whole text in another language.

It only uses what's in the book. Responses are grounded in the actual content you're reading. If your question goes beyond what the book covers, Ask the Book will tell you — so you always know whether an answer is coming from the text or not.

Ask the Book grounds its responses in the book content and links you directly to the relevant passages. However, like any AI system, it can occasionally get things wrong.

You'll always see a disclaimer reminding you of this. We'd encourage you to use the linked passages to check answers for yourself — the links make it quick and easy to verify anything you're not sure about.

If a response cites a definition, it will come from an authoritative source such as the Oxford Dictionary, with full source information shown.

When you ask a question, Ask the Book searches the content of the book you're reading — not the internet, not other books, and not any external knowledge base. Every response is built from the actual text in front of you.

Where the answer draws on a specific passage, section, or chapter, you'll see a citation alongside the response. This citation is a direct link back to the relevant part of the book, so you can see exactly where the information came from and read it in full context.

This matters for a few reasons:

Ask the Book saves your conversation within each book, so you can pick up where you left off next time you open it. Your chat is linked to your account and the specific book you're reading.

As of now, you cannot manage your conversation history (i.e., deleting, rearranging, and/or renaming).

Be specific. The more precise your question, the more useful the response. "What does the author say about regulatory frameworks in Chapter 3?" will get you further than "Tell me about regulations."

Use it to get unstuck. If you're finding a passage difficult, paste or reference it and ask for a plain-language explanation. That's exactly what it's there for.

Follow the links. Every response points back to the relevant part of the book. Use those links — reading the passage in context will deepen your understanding far more than the summary alone.

Test yourself. Try asking Ask the Book to quiz you on a section you've just read. It's a great way to check your comprehension and consolidate what you've learned.

No. Your conversations are not used to train AI models. Interaction logs are stored for up to 90 days for internal purposes such as debugging and safety monitoring, and are kept separate from any personally identifiable information. No third parties have access to your logs.

Ask the Book follows the same copy restrictions as the rest of the Perlego eReader. Verbatim quotes are strictly limited to 10% of each book, and the assistant cannot be used to extract content beyond those limits. Learn more: Copy text and notes

Use the linked passages to go back to the source and check for yourself. If you find contradicting evidence, you can use the feedback option in the panel to let us know.