How Is AI Affecting the Quantity and Quality of New Books?

Key Takeaways

• New titles on Amazon tripled 2022‑2025, some categories up tenfold
• AI‑detected books rose from 0% (2022) to >60% (2025)
• AI‑generated titles receive fewer ratings and lower star scores
• Human‑authored book quantity and quality remained stable
• Mid‑range quality books increase, offering modest consumer choice gain

Pulse Analysis

The NBER paper by Imke Reimers and Joel Waldfogel leverages a massive Amazon catalog to quantify the AI impact on publishing. By applying AI‑detection algorithms to over 50,000 randomly selected titles, the authors trace a clear timeline: AI usage was negligible before 2022, climbed to 30% in 2023, 45% in 2024, and exceeded 60% in 2025. This surge coincides with a near‑tripling of monthly new titles, and in some genres a tenfold increase, suggesting that LLMs dramatically lower the barrier to entry for authors and self‑publishers.

Quality metrics tell a more nuanced story. AI‑generated books consistently earn fewer customer ratings, occupy poorer sales‑rank positions, and receive lower average star scores than their human‑authored counterparts. Despite the flood of new titles, the overall quantity and average rating of human‑written books have remained stable, indicating that traditional authors are not being displaced but are increasingly outnumbered. The net effect on consumer welfare hinges on whether the additional middle‑quality offerings offset the drop in average quality; early evidence points to a modest net gain for readers who value variety over excellence.

The findings echo broader trends across creative industries where generative AI fuels volume but often at the expense of craftsmanship. Publishers may need to adopt new curation strategies, such as AI‑assisted filtering or tiered marketing, to surface higher‑quality works. Meanwhile, authors with modest prior sales are most likely to experiment with AI, potentially using it as a drafting aid rather than a full replacement. As the technology matures, the industry faces a pivotal choice: integrate AI to enhance productivity while safeguarding quality, or risk a market flooded with low‑value content that could erode long‑term reader trust.