American book publishers have publicly denounced generative AI, yet internal reports show that three of the Big Five,HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette,have been integrating large language models such as Claude and ChatGPT into daily workflows without informing authors. More than two dozen employees, speaking anonymously to WIRED to protect their jobs, described the covert adoption of AI tools across editorial, marketing, and design departments.
According to the same sources, the models are deployed to draft emails to literary agents, generate publicity and back-cover copy, create cover-art concepts, and produce marketing videos. At HarperCollins, senior leaders bought Claude licenses months ago but quickly admitted they lacked implementation plans, prompting a group of junior and senior staff to be “voluntold” as AI Champions tasked with surfacing use cases in regular brainstorming sessions.
Simon & Schuster ran an internal competition in May 2024 that offered a $10,000 prize for the best AI use case and $5,000 for two runners-up. Employees later reported that the company pulled back on AI promotion after repeated complaints in town-hall meetings. In response to the perceived intrusion of tools such as Skan AI, staff collected signatures on an open letter to CEO Greg Greeley demanding a firm commitment to keep such software out of future workflows.
Literary agents have begun to suspect that editors are using LLMs to compose rejection letters, noting repetitive phrasing such as “not this, but that” and the rule-of-three structure. One agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said agencies now insert contractual clauses prohibiting the running of any manuscript text through an LLM. A HarperCollins insider added that legal counsel has warned editors against pasting full manuscripts into open-loop models, allowing only air-gapped, closed-loop systems.
HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray told the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in 2022 that AI offers “more opportunities than risks” for publishers and that it could expand the number of translated titles and audiobooks. Hachette’s new chief information officer Carl Hixson, formerly CTO of a Saudi state-backed media group, is expected to revise the company’s AI policy, according to staff familiar with internal discussions.
Outside the Big Five, independent publisher Europa Editions’ executive Michael Reynolds recently praised AI-assisted translation at a booksellers conference, calling the technology “exciting” and dismissing criticisms. At the Frankfurt and London book fairs, several US editors displayed AI-generated translation disclosures on rights-selling listings, indicating that the practice is already surfacing in international market negotiations despite ongoing internal resistance.