With authors battling top AI companies and generated e-books flooding platforms, the book world’s relationship with GenAI has been decidedly rocky.

But OverDrive CEO Steve Potash argues that AI recommendations and other technology can help promote libraries at a time when literacy is in trouble. OverDrive works with more than 90% of libraries in North America and operates the e-book app Libby, the video streaming platform Kanopy, and school library app Sora (no relation to the OpenAI video tool).

OverDrive recently introduced an AI-powered book recommendation feature called Inspire Me that allows readers to find books through prompts or past saved titles. Potash said it’s a way to “explore the nooks and crannies of these fabulous collections our public libraries have invested in.” But it has garnered mixed reactions from AI-averse Libby power users.

Inspire Me isn’t the end of OverDrive’s AI ambitions; Potash wants it to eventually better match users to content across its platforms.

The founder and CEO of nearly four decades talked to us about how libraries are using technology to find new readers and the threats facing these institutions and reading more broadly.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

With Libby, a lot of people who like books and like reading, they’re maybe more suspicious of AI with these author lawsuits and copyright issues. How were you making sure that you were careful about wading into AI? Did you anticipate pushback?

As a certified B Corp, we are accountable to high standards of transparency and business practice, and protecting the planet, and worthy of winning the trust of government funding, and public institutions, like the New York Public Library and Library of Congress.

OverDrive is invested with publishers, with trying to research the future of literacy and overcome reading challenges, and pushing the science of reading to expand the value of access to spoken words or words on the screen. So everything we do is permission-based.

The AI pertaining to this Inspire Me service…is an OverDrive-contained LLM that is only utilizing the cataloging information, metadata, and other controlled data points that we have. And we add value to the catalogs of all of our libraries, or how we enhance the information around every book.

We had a long history of trust, consumer engagement, discovery, and engagement with readers to find their next great read. But with Inspire Me, we’re using all of that 25 years of internal cataloging data that enhances the books.

Keep reading here.—PK

The number of public EV fast chargers moved up and to the right in Q3—but at a slower pace than in the previous quarter.

That’s according to EV charging data provider Paren’s latest quarterly report on EV fast-charging in the US. Despite the slight slowdown, the firm maintains its previous prediction that 16,700 new fast-charging ports will be deployed in the US in 2025.

“Quarter on quarter, the pace of new deployments slowed slightly, following a seasonal pattern,” according to the report. “But EV drivers enjoyed a more robust and extensive network of fast charging stations during the summer. Utilization rates and reliability are noticeably up while prices remained mostly unchanged.”

Key takeaways: According to Paren’s data, chargepoint operators added 699 new fast-charging stations in Q3, down 12% from the previous quarter, for a total of 12,375 stations. Those stations encompassed 4,061 new ports, down 7.7% QoQ, for a total of 64,486 ports. The numbers reflect the fact that charging networks increasingly are building stations with eight or more charging stalls.

Q3 marked a record-setting sales period for EVs as consumers rushed to take advantage of federal tax credits on EV purchases before the incentives expired at the end of September. Analysts widely expect a slowdown in EV sales in Q4.

Keep reading here.—JG

At Aurora Energy Research’s NYC forum last week, analyst Julia Hoos said the quiet part out loud: Once the effects of solar and wind tax credits being phased out take hold and the renewable building boom stalls, “there is a real fear that [the renewable energy industry is] standing in front of a cliff in about 2028 or 2030.”

President Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act “has reversed the momentum that the Inflation Reduction Act injected into the energy transition,” Hoos, the head of USA East research at Aurora, told the audience last week. “But we also have to contextualize that we’re starting from a place of momentum like we’ve never had before.”

Thus, her prediction is that renewables will continue to be built in the US and that “those projects are going to benefit from higher revenues that can offset their higher costs.” But the most successful renewable projects will be strategic in their placement and benefit to the grid.

“Profitability is going to be less of a given,” Hoos said. “That increases the importance of understanding how much additional renewables or batteries a particular market can absorb.”

Keep reading here.—TC