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Quality over Quantity Artificial intelligence is changing both the quantity and quality of new book releases. By Hannah Fairman and Lynn MacDonald
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rtificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries — transforming productivity, business models, and the nature of work. As adoption accelerates, questions remain about who benefits, who might be displaced, and how labor markets will adapt. Economists are studying these issues as they play out in real-time. Publishing is one industry where AI’s effects are especially visible. As
AI reduces the time and cost required for authors to produce written content, new research is showing how its use is affecting both the quantity and quality of new book releases. AI uses large language models (LLMs) to scan, synthesize, and assess information from vast amounts of data. With recent advancements, AI is now able to create large amounts of written text, making the
Contributors ________ Hannah Fairman is associate director at Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute at the University of Minnesota. Lynn MacDonald, Ph.D., is director of the SCSU Center for Economic Education and a professor of economics.
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production of books less expensive while reducing entry costs. In fact, there are AI tools that assist first-time authors in creating a ready-to-go, formatted book in under 30 minutes. When entry costs fall, more producers tend to enter the market. The rise of AI provides a real-time opportunity to see whether greater market participation produces valuable new products or simply floods the market with low-quality offerings. Economists Imke Reimers and Joel Waldfogel (University of Minnesota) are researching this exact phenomenon. Their findings show AI changed both the quantity and quality of books entering the market. While an influx of lowercaliber AI books lowered overall quality, human-authored books held steady. They also found that less-skilled and less-experienced authors were more likely to adopt AI, helping explain the performance gap between AI-assisted and human-authored books. Using data from Amazon, the authors found that new e-book releases roughly tripled between 2022 and late 2025. Some categories showed increases approaching ten-fold. Particularly large growth occurred in categories such as travel, sports and outdoors, self-help, and computers and technology. The increase in titles coincided with the rapid spread of LLMs following ChatGPT's release in late 2022. The researchers examined 50,000 randomly selected books for evidence of AI-generated content. They found virtually no
detected AI use through 2022. Detected AI use rose to roughly 30 percent in 2023, 45 percent in 2024, and more than 60 percent in 2025. Another important finding is that books with detected AI content performed worse both in ratings and in sales. Most AI books received very little usage, although some achieved moderate success. At the same time, the researchers found that “the number and quality of human-authored books have remained stable,” and AI did not appear to reduce output from existing authors. Even though existing authors do not appear to have been displaced, many remain concerned about the long-term effects of AI on publishing. Some worry about declining quality while others fear publishers may replace the humans in the book industry with AI tools. Some well-known authors have encouraged publishers not to use or publish AI-generated content. Amazon currently requires authors to disclose AI-generated — but not AI-assisted — content, although that information is not disclosed to consumers. While AI appears to generate a great deal of mediocre content, more total publications could create value for consumers. Reimers and Waldfogel estimate that consumer surplus — the economic value consumers receive from having more choices — increased by roughly 7 percent in 2025, highlighting one potential benefit of more books being published with the assistance of AI.