Posted by Maleeha Mir on 29 September 2025, in Event reports, News
Photos by Phoebe Ireland, Words by Chris Russell
You can listen to the complete audio recording of this event via this link.
Amid rising concerns over copyright infringement, plagiarism and machine-made prose, Byte The Book returned to Soho’s Century Club on 24 September to discuss how authors, publishers and literary estates can channel AI for good. The panel comprised Jon Watt, Trade Audio and Business Development Director at Bonnier Books UK; Anna Hervé, an editorial consultant specialising in literary estates; and Dan Grabiner, co-founder of Portland Literary.
Our panel from left to right: Jon Watt, Justine Solomons, Anna Hervé, and Dan Grabiner.
The debate began with a focus on AI in audio, the fastest-growing format in the industry. Most publishers, revealed Jon, are funded principally by their backlists, but the economics of producing audiobooks from deep backlist titles can be daunting, with narrators costing upwards of £2000 per title. AI can lower these costs considerably, whether that’s by accelerating pre-production schedules (scanning manuscripts for hard-to-pronounce words, for example), super-charging promotional campaigns (through enhanced visuals) or by generating the narration itself, at a fraction of the cost of human actors. Dan echoed AI’s utility in this area, underlining the fact that, in the book world, using software to save time and resources is far from a new practice. “We see AI as a tool like any other,” he explained, matter-of-factly. “I’m not scared of Microsoft Word or Gmail, because they’re just tools. They’re not replacements for human creativity”.
Job Watt explores the current funding landscape for publishers and explains how AI can help reduce costs and address ongoing economic challenges.
As the conversation turned to literary estates, Anna reflected on her work and commentary around the legendary Agatha Christie, who remains, to this day, the best-selling novelist of all time (“dead authors are my thing”, she joked). She sees AI as a mechanism for revitalising the works of such writers, bringing them to fresh audiences and possibly even leading to a golden age for literary estates. “People often already have these books,” she reflected, “but they’re still looking for new ways to buy them”. For a celebrity of Christie’s stature, for instance, there is potential to harness the recordings she made in the latter stages of her career – she began dictating her books once typing became too arduous – via the use of AI sampling technology. Anna stressed, however, that when it comes to heritage authors, integrity must be prized above all else. “Literary estates have prestige,” she concluded, “so we have to be careful not to kill the golden goose. Don’t do a Burberry and end up with football hooligans wearing it”. Dan agreed, referencing what he described as “the generational responsibility of custodianship”. He compared stewarding a literary estate to inheriting a stately home, and called it “a huge responsibility”, one that must be handled with generosity and care.
Anna Hervé shares her perspective as an experienced editorial consultant, viewing emerging technologies as powerful tools to efficiently support and enhance human creativity.
Finally, the panel grappled with one of the most controversial topics in the AI space – piracy, and specifically the way in which Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta accessed millions of pirated books and research papers through a “shadow library” known as LibGen, without author consent, in order to train its generative AI systems. “We know pirated books are on the internet,” acknowledged Dan, ever the pragmatist, “but we also know that people always return to quality. If you’re the authorised home for a brand, that definitely counts for something”. Jon referenced recent licensing deals between Google and publishers such as Bloomsbury and HarperCollins as an antidote to Meta’s shady dealings, arguing that with proper agreements – ones that ensure author involvement – it’s perfectly possible for AI to play a sustainable role in the industry. “With Meta,” added Anna, “it was simply the scale on which they scraped IP without consent that shocked people”. Certain proponents of the tech sector, she remarked, have been “moving fast and breaking things”, reasoning that if they violate the law with enough reckless abandon, the rest of the world will be forced to remake the rules to suit them. “But,” she added, with steely detemination, “in publishing, we believe that ‘all rights reserved’ is pretty clear”.
Dan Grabiner highlights the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry, emphasizing its potential to drive innovation and accelerate the industry's evolution.
As ever, the conversation made it evident that AI is neither a saviour nor a villain, but a set of tools, the impact of which depends entirely on the nature of their deployment. From reducing costs in audiobook production to reaching new audiences for backlist titles, the potential is undeniable – but so too are the risks of diluting value or eroding trust. Quality and authenticity, agreed the panellists, must remain the lodestars. In an industry built on the long lives of books and the voices behind them, the challenge is not to resist AI outright, but to channel it wisely, ensuring that technology supports human creativity rather than supplanting it. Or, to borrow Anna’s closing observation: “We want AI to wash the dishes for us … not paint the Sistine Chapel”.
Members of the HW Fisher team, proud sponsors of the event, enjoying this unique and insightful panel.
Thank you to HW Fisher for sponsoring our event and to the Century Club for hosting us!
You can find many more photos from this panel from our online album 'Future Folios: How Can Authors, Publishers and Literary Estates channel AI for good? Sponsored by HW Fisher' here!
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