The Pulse
Book Publishers Expand AI Use as Staff Push Back
Employees at HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Hachette tell WIRED that publishers are using AI for publicity, marketing and other tasks, as workers raise concerns about job pressure and monitoring. A new industry survey also finds organi
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
On October 6, Simon & Schuster chief executive Greg Greeley told employees that the company had explored an AI productivity-monitoring product but had made no decision to adopt it. The memo followed staff efforts to gather signatures on an open letter opposing the software. Three days later, WIRED reported that workers at Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Hachette described a wider spread of AI use across publishing work.
More than two dozen publishing workers told WIRED that companies are using tools including ChatGPT and Claude to draft publicity and back-cover copy, email literary agents, develop marketing materials and produce cover art. The workers spoke anonymously, citing concerns about jeopardizing their jobs. Their accounts show a dispute that reaches beyond the words on a page: employees also describe pressure to adopt the tools and anxiety about software that could track or replace their work.
AI tools move into publishing departments
At HarperCollins, senior leaders bought Claude licenses but soon found they needed help identifying how to use them, according to a current employee. The company then asked junior- and senior-level staff to act as “AI Champions,” with monthly brainstorming sessions to find applications. One employee told WIRED that colleagues who raised legal, ethical and environmental concerns at a spring meeting felt dismissed.
Simon & Schuster employees attended a workshop with OpenAI representatives, one attendee said. The workshop suggested using ChatGPT to compose emails to literary agents, a practice workers say has also appeared at HarperCollins and Hachette. Simon & Schuster held an employee contest for AI use cases in May 2024, offering a $10,000 first prize and $5,000 to each of two runners-up, according to staff cited by WIRED.
Publicity copy is among the most common uses workers described. Publishers put that material on retailer and review sites, back covers and pitches to booksellers, journalists and critics. Meg Reid, publisher of independent Hub City Press, told WIRED that the shift could distinguish corporate publishers seeking efficiencies from smaller presses that see human involvement as central to their work.
Simon & Schuster staff object to monitoring
The immediate flashpoint at Simon & Schuster is a reported experimental trial with Skan AI’s Blueprint product. Employees began gathering signatures on an open letter to Greeley seeking a commitment not to bring the software, or similar products, into company workflows. Workers cited concerns about surveillance and whether tools for mapping work processes could be used to automate jobs.
In his October 6 memo, Greeley said the company had been exploring Blueprint, but “no decision has been made to use Blueprint or any other productivity-monitoring or workflow-analysis tool.” He also said he had not seen materials about the early-stage exploration before employees raised concerns. WIRED reported that the trial was understood by employees to have come at the apparent urging of KKR, which bought Simon & Schuster in 2023.
Workers also connect AI adoption to staffing cuts and heavier workloads. One publishing employee described teams reduced to five or six people handling roughly twice or three times as many books. That account does not establish that AI tools have replaced those staff; it captures employees’ concern that management is pressing them to use automation while leaving smaller teams to do more.
Publishers describe different limits
Hachette said it supports AI for operational tasks when the tools help books reach more readers, but does not support creative uses, including communication with authors and partners. Wibke Grutjen, Simon & Schuster’s global chief marketing and communications officer, said employees have access to a limited number of enterprise AI tools and that use is not mandatory. HarperCollins did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Confidential manuscripts are another source of concern. Literary agents told WIRED they worry that publishers could put authors’ unpublished work into AI systems to produce rejection letters or publicity descriptions. One agent said contracts now include clauses barring material from being run through an LLM; a HarperCollins employee said managers had been told by the company’s legal team not to paste full manuscripts into an open-loop model.
Survey shows a widening gap in adoption
A September report from the Book Industry Study Group and BookNet Canada offers a broader measure of the shift. Among 771 respondents, 63 percent said their organization used AI in 2026, up from 48 percent in 2025, while individual use fell from 46 percent to 38 percent. Organizational adoption does not necessarily mean unrestricted use: the report says 49 percent of respondents’ organizations had an official AI policy or guidelines, compared with 31 percent the year before.
The survey and the employee accounts describe different sides of the same tension: publishers are formalizing company-level use even as individual workers grow more cautious. Emma Dries, an agent at Triangle House Literary and a former HarperCollins and Penguin Random House editor, told WIRED, “We need publishers to be clear about what is being used and when.” At Simon & Schuster, staff have raised that demand directly with management through their open letter.