AI Book Boom: Russians Over 35 Are Reading Up on Artificial Intelligence

A surge in book downloads suggests that Russia’s older readers are racing to understand AI—and how to work with it.

Between May and July 2025, Russian readers over the age of 35 showed a 72 percent spike in interest in books about artificial intelligence and its real-world applications, compared to the previous three months. That’s according to press data from Stroki, a popular digital book service. For the first half of 2025, this demographic’s demand for AI literature rose by 66 percent compared to the latter half of 2024.

Practical guides on how to work with neural networks are leading the charge. Among the top-selling titles are Damir Khalilov’s 'ChatGPT for Every Day: 333 Prompts for Business and Marketing,' Evgeny Chereshnev’s 'Lifeform No. 4: How to Stay Human in the Age of AI,' and 'ChatGPT: The Prompt Master' by Petr Panda and Arina Sycheva. International authors such as Clifford Pickover, Salman Khan, and Kai-Fu Lee also made it into the top 10.

The trend points to a growing urgency among the public to keep up with fast-moving technological changes.