Amazon Becomes the First Major Book Retailer To Require AI Disclosure

Everything we know about Amazon’s new AI policy

Amazon became the first major book retailer and the first among the Big 5 to announce an AI policy that focuses on disclosure. There are a few  key pieces to know about this policy:

• All Book Products Require Disclosure - It is required to fill out the information about your AI usage whenever you upload a new book.

• Honesty and Compliance is Part of the Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement - Amazon is explicit that if they catch you breaking their disclosure rules, they consider it to be a violation of their TOS Agreement, which gives them further leeway to shut down your account. They can, of course, shut down anyone’s account at any time, with or without reason, but it does seem like they intend to use disclosure violations to shut down scammer accounts.

• Amazon Defines Two Terms Around Your Disclosure Requirements - You can find the official terms online, but I’ve summarized them below:

  • AI-Assisted works are those in which the creator is human and AI is used to improve the product.

  • AI-Generated works are those in which all or part of the creation originated with AI, and a human performed or didn’t perform additional work like editing on AI-generated content. The extent of the additional work does not matter for categorization.

• Amazon Makes No Judgment Calls or Bans on AI Content - AI-generated content according to their defintion is currently allowed on Amazon’s storefront. You are allowed to sell it in the store.

• No Public-Facing Information is Disclosed - While this could change at any time, your answers to this question are not disclosed publicly at this time anywhere on the storefront. There is currently no separate section of the store and no indication of algorithmic penalty.

• There is No Evidence of Shadow Banning - Shadow banning is a term used to indicate that something is suppressed algorithmically due to hidden factors. While this could change at any time, there is currently no evidence of AI-generated content being throttled or shadow banned on the platform.

Everything Amazon Has Said About Their New AI Policy

Amazon Becomes the First Major Retailer to Ask for AI Disclosure. The company writes, “When you publish a new title or make edits to and re-publish an existing title through KDP, you will be asked whether your content is AI-generated.” This is still a developing story. A few threads that are weaving their way in:

• Amazon defines and distinguishes AI-generated content from AI-assisted content. Amazon reps have further confirmed that these definitions apply to covers, interior images, and text. Read the definitions here »

• There is currently no public-facing marker added to your books if you check that the book was AI-generated, indicating that at the current time, this disclosure is for internal processes.

• Authors Guild inserts themselves into the conversation. Authors Guild has come under tremendous fire for both their harsh stance on AI usage and their efforts to promote AI through training and webinars (the most recent of which received so much backlash that they were forced to cancel it). They are now implying that their conversations with Amazon are a significant force behind Amazon’s new disclosure policy.

• More likely, Amazon has added disclosure to its Terms of Service to handle the copyright issues and infringement claims that arise, now and in the future. As a reminder, Amazon is one of the leading AI companies in the world and is bringing multiple AI-generated tools to all its products, including its products for vendors.

If you want more about selling books on Amazon, make sure you grab my book, Get Your Book Selling on Amazon.