AI-generated books flood Amazon, squeezing out human authors

Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books

A study of 14,419 self-published genre-fiction books on Amazon from 2023 to 2026 found that books with substantial AI-generated text (>25%) make up a large share of the catalog but a smaller share of sales. However, they are winning a growing share of sales and top-rank positions over time. The number of selling books grew 19.2-fold while revenue grew only 8.9-fold, so revenue per book fell. Books without AI text lose the most ground in genres with high AI diffusion, especially where Kindle Unlimited is popular. Among top sellers, AI-heavy books draw on more distinctive language from existing books, and this overlap rises with revenue, a pattern not seen for non-AI books. Generative AI can reshape a creative market through scale rather than quality.