Books embrace artificial intelligence: 75% of Italian publishers use it
The Aie study presented in Rome during the 'Più libri più liberi' fair. Angiolini: 'Avoid underestimates and overestimates. Challenge accepted, but now clear rules are needed"
In Italy, three out of four publishers have invited artificial intelligence into their publishing houses: press releases, back covers, metadata, covers, illustrations, sales forecasts. This is the picture that comes from the first systematic Italian survey on the use of AI in book publishing, carried out by the Italian Publishers' Association (Aie) and which will be presented today at 'Più libri più liberi' (More free books), the fair for small and medium-sized publishers that is recording great success with the public and great media attention, not least because of the protest by various publishers that has been generated around the presence of the extreme right-wing publisher Passaggio al Bosco.
In the study to be presented today and which Il Sole 24 Ore was able to preview, the number that strikes one immediately is that 75.3% of publishers claim to use AI tools within their organisation. Among the large groups, above EUR 5 million in turnover, the percentage shoots up to 96.2%. But the technological wave does not stop with the big ones: between one and five million in turnover we are at 75%, between 500 thousand and one million at 66.7%, to reach 62.5% even among publishers under 100 thousand.
'What struck us most was the speed of the response and the breadth of the response,' says Andrea Angiolini, Aie's innovation delegate. 184 publishing brands responded to the survey: a sign that the topic is of great relevance. It is no coincidence that Angiolini recalls the decision to put AI under observation a few years ago: 'The basic idea was: let's try to avoid both underestimating and overestimating the phenomenon, and let's try to give everyone the same conditions to then make their own decisions'.
The answers say that artificial intelligence is already a piece of the hidden engine of editorial offices. 67.1% of publishers who use AI employ it for press office and communication, another 67.1% for paratexts and metadata, 50.7% for covers and illustrations, 49.3% for editing, proofreading and translations. Then there are administrative activities (31.5%), accessibility (21.9%), commercial analysis and sales forecasts (19.2%).
"The prevalence of uses is in the back office," observes Angiolini, who, however, already sees a front end emerging: "Then there is an interesting amount of applications already in the front end. Right now they are much more concentrated in the school, university and professional sectors". There, publishers have an advantage: digital platforms have existed for years and services based on generative AI find 'ready' ground.
