Barnes & Noble's boss says the chain won't shy away from stocking books written by artificial intelligence, as long as they're clearly labeled as such. CEO James Daunt told Jenna Bush Hager on NBC's Today that he's fine selling AI-generated titles provided they're honest about their origins, and if anybody wants to read them.
- "I have actually no problem selling any book, as long as it doesn't masquerade or pretend to be something that it isn't, and that it has an essential quality to it, and that the customer, the reader, wants it," Daunt said. "So as long as an AI-written book says it's an AI-written book and doesn't pretend to be something else and isn't ripping off somebody else, as long as that's clearly stated and the customer wants to buy it, then we will stock them."
Bush told him that as a passionate reader, she was worried about the rise of AI because books are "very human." Daunt said there may be some AI-generated books already on the shelves. "We have 300,000 titles across all of our stores. Do we think that some of those may be AI? The chances are that they are, but we're not really conscious of them," he said. Daunt added, however, that it "seems unlikely to us that these AI-generated books are going to get much commercial traction." Going forward, he said, the key for booksellers will be simple disclosure: making clear when an "author" isn't human.
His remarks came amid a broader backlash in publishing, People reports.. More than 70 authors urged major US publishers in 2025 to refuse machine-written books and not replace staff or human audiobook narrators with AI, citing issues from copyright to the technology's environmental toll. Earlier this year, Hachette scrapped horror novel Shy Girl after reviewing allegations of extensive AI involvement.
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