This edition covers Google’s new AI video tool for Workspace customers, a US federal ruling dismissing a copyright suit against OpenAI, fresh data on AI adoption in publishing jobs, AI’s role in research integrity and creative writing, and award news for the IPG AI training programme.

This edition covers the dispute over an AI-generated cover for Jodi Picoult’s new book, Anthropic’s new CSV analysis feature in Claude, the launch of ChatGPT Search, and how AI-driven search could reshape publishers’ relationships with the open web.

Thanks to Graham Bell from EDItEUR for inviting me to speak at the 45th International Supply Chain Seminar in Frankfurt this afternoon, to update the AI presentation I gave last year. Giving an update meant less time on first principles, and it was a really interesting prompt to step back, compare this year’s slides with the 2023 deck and see what had changed. Of course, massive development on the technology side, more legal uncertainty, and greater awareness of the environmental impact of AI. But some points, like the importance of keeping human decision makers in the loop, are perennial.

I gave a short presentation on how publishers are using AI at the Society of Indexers Conference today. It was great to give the publisher perspective ahead of a fascinating presentation from Tanya Izzard on experimenting with LLMs for indexing: the mix of general and specific themes led into a lively discussion.

Thanks very much to the team at BookNet Canada for inviting me to speak at their Tech Forum webinar this evening on the elements of a balanced and ethical AI strategy for publishers. It’s hard to do justice to such an expansive topic in a forty minute presentation, but I discussed a number of key aspects including the pace of change and capability overhang in AI, copyright and Fair Use, accuracy, provenance, the environmental impact of AI and its increasing integration with all elements of the publishing application stack.

(Originally posted on LinkedIn): I’m coming up on four years of working as an independent consultant, and I’ve hit the limit on working from home: too many distractions, from parcel deliveries to dogs (I blame the owners… 😉). So I am really pleased to have settled into my own office a short walk from home in Salisbury, to have a dedicated space for webinars/online training, and somewhere that I can meet colleagues and clients without cluttering up the kitchen table. If you’re in the neighbourhood, come in for a coffee or a walk over to Dark Revolution.

(Originally posted on LinkedIn): It’s become a habit each December for me to post about the best books that I read this year. For the fourth year, a selection of non-fiction books that I hope you might find interesting.

I don’t use TikTok, but it has been hard to escape its impact on the publishing industry, where I spent the first part of my career. Nielsen research suggests that one in four UK book buyers used TikTok in 2022, accounting for 90 million purchases. As a collective phenomenon, BookTok was awarded the person of the year award at last year’s Futurebook conference. In the meantime, there’s little doubt that the platform has a huge impact on commissioning, marketing and selling books, and that publishers are investing time and money to make the most of that. As a proxy for the level of interest, a search on the Bookseller magazine’s website this morning showed eighty nine search results for ‘TikTok’ for stories published in the first quarter of the year, versus four results for ‘GPT’. (Long term, I know which one I would bet on being most significant and transformative, but that’s another story.)