Research confirms AI-generated books are compressing market for human authors

A recent investigation analyzed 14,000 e-books sold on Amazon between 2023 and 2026, revealing that a significant proportion contains substantial AI-generated content, and that this volume is sufficient to impact the market size available for other works. The research found that the number of bestselling books increased 19-fold, while total reader spending on these books grew only 9-fold, indicating the market became considerably more congested without proportional expansion. Additionally, as the volume of books containing AI-generated text increases, the market share of books without detected AI content also declines. The finding challenges claims by AI companies that models trained on copyrighted works cause no economic harm to original creators, a point that had been previously difficult to demonstrate empirically.