This chapter anticipates the future of incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading and suggests topics for future research. First, it advocates changing the research trajectory from a focus on outcomes—in which participants proceed from no knowledge to partial (or “full”) knowledge—to a focus on understanding what participants do when reading. Researchers should consider how learners acquire new words and how the knowledge of partially known words is enhanced through incidental exposure. Currently, participants’ behaviors are inferred from the results of offline vocabulary assessments. This chapter explains why triangulating online reading behaviors with offline vocabulary acquisition measures provides a nuanced picture of the incidental learning process. Next, the potential of cognitive science data collection methods for the future of incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading, and dual modalities are discussed. The following section discusses the urgent need to replicate the results of existing incidental vocabulary acquisition studies because these are currently limited. Longitudinal research and modeling are proposed to account for the non-linear process of incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. Next, the chapter discusses how artificial intelligence can be leveraged for incidental vocabulary acquisition and possible future research. The chapter concludes with a summary of the future of the field.