What AI Will Mean To Book Publishing

Trade book publishing industry as we know it will soon be obsolete, asserts Thad McIlroy.

Publishing consultant Thad McIlroy suggests that “AI Is About to Turn Book Publishing Upside-Down” in a Publishers Weekly column this week.

“The latest generation of AI is a game changer,” McIlroy writes. “I believe that every function in trade book publishing today can be automated with the help of generative AI. And, if this is true, then the trade book publishing industry as we know it will soon be obsolete.”

Such a dramatic prosect shouldn’t be cause for fear, but for excitement, he advises.

As PW’s Andrew Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally, McIlroy raises critical questions that the book world cannot avoid for long: What will publishing look like after generative AI has been fully assimilated into our current workflows? What will reading look like?

“What Thad McIlroy has done is reframe the discussion in a way that pierces some of the fear and gets to some of the possibilities,” Albanese says.

Every Friday, CCC’s “Velocity of Content” features the editors and reporters of Publishers Weekly for an early look at what news publishers, editors, authors, agents, and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.