This study addresses the complex relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and literature studies, focusing on whether and to what extent AI can contribute to the analysis, interpretation, and creation of literary texts. AI technologies excel in processing large datasets and identifying patterns, structures, and themes within literary corpora, enabling a form of thematic and formal mapping. These capabilities remain limited to surface-level analysis and fail to engage with the depth at which literature constructs meaning—through symbolism, ambiguity, inimitable figurations, and linguistic experimentation. Literature studies require an approach that integrates experience, intuitive knowledge, and personal insight, dimensions that fall outside the logical architecture of AI. The article also incorporates a survey of students and young researchers in literary studies to assess the extent of AI usage, their attitudes toward it, and their perceptions of its potential and limitations. The results reveal a growing critical awareness of AI’s constraints, with respondents largely viewing it as a supplementary tool to enhance, rather than replace, traditional human-centered methods of interpretation and literary creation. AI offers valuable tools that can enhance literary studies, complementing human creativity and insight. While it excels at analysis, the unique ability of literature to explore the irrational and metaphysical aspects of human experience remains a domain where human intuition and subjectivity are irreplaceable. AI should therefore be viewed as a powerful supplement to, rather than a replacement for human-centered approaches in literary interpretation and creation.