(29 Sep 2026) Given the ongoing conversations regarding AI and its usage, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what’s really happening; how employees and leadership feel about AI, the overall level of adoption of these technologies within organizations, and how it’s changing over time.
In response to this need for clarity and information, BookNet Canada and Book Industry Study Group (BISG) fielded a follow-up to their 2025 survey. AI use across the North American book industry 2026 is a free publication that shares insights from a survey fielded to Canadian and American book industry professionals over the summer of 2026 to get a sense of how the industry has been approaching AI.
Here are some highlights:
- The survey received 771 total responses.
- In 2026, 38% of the respondents said they use AI as individuals, which is an 8% decrease from last year (46%), and 63% said their organization used AI, which is a 15% increase from 2025 (48%).
- AI was most commonly used for:
- Administrative or operational tasks (individuals: 46%; organizations: 56%)
- Marketing activities (individuals: 44%; organizations: 54%)
- Data analysis or reporting (individuals: 36%; organizations: 41%)
- The primary trust concern for survey respondents was a tie between AI-generated books, including fraudulent or low-quality content, flooding major retail platforms and concerns about the accuracy of AI information when using the tools (false positives from AI detectors, AI hallucinations) (89% for each).
- The primary risk concern for survey respondents around AI in the industry is inadequate controls around the use of copyrighted material (86%).
Read the report here.
