Book industry faces challenges from AI and declining literacy

The publishing industry is facing significant challenges due to the rise of artificial intelligence, ranging from declining reading comprehension to copyright disputes. At the 78th Frankfurt Book Fair, historian Jill Lepore warned that literary knowledge is increasingly being absorbed by tech giants, who provide pre-packaged AI responses rather than fostering independent thought.

In Germany, the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels reported a sharp decline in book sales among 10-to-15-year-olds, which dropped by 30 percent in 2025. This trend is linked to declining reading literacy and a market being flooded with low-quality, AI-generated content.

Copyright concerns are also intensifying. Authors and publishers have accused major AI developers of using books as free raw material for model training through scraping and scanning without permission. While some companies like Anthropic have paid settlements for using books from shadow libraries, many providers continue to treat literary works as free resources. Additionally, the industry is grappling with the impact of AI on literary integrity, highlighted by a controversy in France where a novel was removed from a major prize shortlist due to suspected AI involvement.