New paper finds AI-generated books on Amazon are earning money and crowding out non-AI titles
beechinour · x · 2026-07-28
AI-written books are crowding out non-AI titles on Amazon
A new paper on AI and copyright uses full-text AI detection from Pangram to study self-published genre fiction sold on Amazon from 2023 through March 2026.
The authors argue that Amazon is now flooded with books containing substantial AI-generated text, and that these titles are not just cheap slop — they are also earning meaningful money and, more importantly, taking sales away from non-AI books. Their core point is that generative AI enables massive volume, and in this market sheer existence at scale can be enough to create impact even without high quality.
The paper is coauthored with researchers from UMich, Stony Brook, and Columbia Law.
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