Many authors today fear being wrongly accused of using AI by editors, readers, and imperfect AI detectors. Publishers have already canceled several books for ostensibly containing AI-generated text. We ask authors to be transparent about their use of AI, and publishers should do the same, including with respect to their use of AI detectors.

To ensure mutual trust between authors and publishers, the Authors Guild proposes the following principles and guidelines for transparency and disclosure regarding publishers’ AI use:

Recommended Best Practices

1. Publishers should provide authors with clear and transparent AI use policies.

Every publisher should adopt a written AI policy that spells out what types of AI uses it will permit or prohibit. The policy should either be made part of the publishing agreement or, if in a separate document, be provided to the author for acknowledgement when signing the publishing agreement.

Whether included in the publishing agreement or a separate document, the AI policy should encourage the author to disclose AI use and commit the publisher and author to working together to bring the manuscript in compliance with the publisher’s author AI policy. The policy should clarify the publisher’s expectations with respect to the “originality” and “sole author” representations in the author contract, in addition to explaining that AI-generated text is not original and cannot be copyrighted.

No publisher should ever cancel a contract due to AI use unless the author violated a signed contract or policy that clearly prohibits the particular use and it is a material term of the agreement.

2. Publishers should not use AI to edit.

Either in the written AI policy or in the publishing agreement, the publisher should commit to not using AI to edit a manuscript, other than for mere spelling and grammar corrections. Further, the publisher should agree not to insert AI-generated content, including artwork, without the author’s express written permission.

3. Publishers should be transparent about their use of AI and AI detectors.

Publishers should be fully transparent about when and why they use AI detectors and should include this information in their written AI policies. Publishers should likewise be transparent about any use of AI in the marketing or sale of a book, including whether and when a manuscript may be uploaded to an internal AI system and for what purpose; and, as we noted in our April 2026 statement, publishers should never allow employees to upload a manuscript to any public AI system (as doing so is copyright infringement), but only with the author’s permission to closed systems operated by the publisher.

The same considerations apply to AI detectors. Using a third-party detection service requires uploading that manuscript to a third party’s AI system. Before doing so, a publisher should know how the service stores and uses submitted text, should confirm that the text will not be retained or used for training, and should obtain the author’s permission. While some detectors state that they never train on user data, be aware that policies and practices could change at any time.

4. Neither publishers nor agents should rely solely on AI detectors to determine if parts of a manuscript were AI-generated.

No publisher, agent, or other person should rely solely on an AI detector to determine if a book contains AI text. AI detectors—even the best—are not always accurate. Publishers and agents should not rely upon self-reported error rates of any detector, as they may not be accurate over time and among different works.

Given the possibility of false positives (and false negatives for that matter), the Authors Guild objects to the use of AI detectors alone by publishers, editors, and agents to accuse a writer of using AI to generate text, much less to cancel a contract. One false accusation can ruin an author’s career. The harm to the author is too great to tolerate any false positives. If AI detectors suggest that an author has violated a publisher’s written AI policies, the publisher must consult with the author regarding the matter.

5. Editors should be educated to detect AI use and engage in conversations with authors where AI use is suspected.

If an editor suspects AI was used to generate text or other creative elements of the manuscript, the editor may use a non-infringing and generally reliable AI detector under the conditions noted above and should discuss the results with the author as part of the review and approval process. The author should be given the opportunity to rewrite the AI-generated portions in accordance with the editor’s feedback.

If the author refuses or neglects to correct the text pursuant to the approval process laid out in the agreement and AI policy, depending on the terms of the contract, the persistent AI use could be a basis for rejection of the manuscript. However, once a manuscript is approved and published, AI use alone should not be used as a basis for cancellation of the contract unless that is clearly spelled out in the contract.

The bottom line is that if an editor suspects undisclosed AI use, they should first contact the author and have a frank conversation. Results from an AI detector should be used as a basis for discussion—not to summarily cancel a contract or publicly shame any author.

6. Publishers should take into account special cases that may be especially susceptible to false AI accusations.

AI detectors are prone to flagging writing by non-native English speakers as AI-generated at higher rates since many detectors work by measuring how predictable a text’s word choices and sentence structures are. Writers working in a second language often use more common vocabulary and more regular syntax, and that can read as “predictable” to a detector. The same can be true of writers in genres with strong conventions and of writers whose style is plain by design. Publishers should treat an AI detector’s flagging such writing as weak evidence and be aware that plain or formulaic prose is not, on its own, a sign of AI use.

Where an author’s linguistic or cultural background may bear on why their writing was flagged, the publisher should approach the conversation sensitively and rigorously, and may include staff responsible for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the conversation.

7. Publishers should not require authors to prove that they wrote their books.

Professional writers have usually spent years developing their craft; it is the author’s voice, intellect, personality, and creativity that make their work unique. They should not be required to prove that they are doing what they have always done—writing their own books. Many writers are rightfully deeply offended by such notions and feel as though they are subject to a witch hunt for merely practicing their craft as they always have.

As such, the Authors Guild opposes any requirement that authors use technologies that track or log their writing process in order to demonstrate that they wrote the work themselves.

At the same time, we fully support authors who choose to use such technologies or processes to preserve their drafts or writing in the event they are later accused of using AI to write for them.