The joke around the proverbial water cooler goes that this is apparently the week all the bigwigs in lit world got together and decided to embrace their own destruction. [Insert sad trombone sound.]
James Daunt, the CEO of Barnes & Noble and the mogul behind Britain’s Waterstone’s and Daunt Books, told NBC this Monday that he theoretically “has no problem” selling books written by AI in his many, many stores.
Speaking to Today host and book club leader Jenna Bush Hager in a segment for NBC News, Daunt confirmed that he has “actually no problem selling any book, as long as it doesn’t masquerade or pretend to be something that it isn’t.” This was in response to a line of questions about what AI means for human authors.
Taking a neutral tone, Daunt elaborated. “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…so I think it’s something that one should treat with common sense and acceptance.” [Ed. note: Actually, all AI books are ripping off somebody else.]
Daunt has previously expressed ambivalence about AI books while deferring responsibility to the consumer. In 2025 he told the BBC, “As a bookseller, we sell what publishers publish, but I can say that instinctively [AI books] are something that we would recoil [from].” But as one hand disparaged the trend, the other was beckoning.
