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.
This new report was created to:
- bring clarity to where the industry is in its approach to AI;
- identify year-over-year changes and trends;
- support the data-driven development of guidelines and best practices by industry organizations such as BISG and BookNet Canada, their members, partners, and collaborators; and
- provide insights to organizations and individuals that guide the development of their own resources, including policies, processes, workflows, training and professional development plans, and more.
Report highlights: AI use across the North American book industry
We recommend reading the full report to get a fuller sense of where the industry is at. But in the meantime, 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 32% 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%).
More on AI in the book industry
Join us on October 27 for How the Canadian book industry is approaching AI, a Tech Forum webinar focused on sharing insights from the data captured from the Canadian survey respondents. In this session you’ll learn how your industry peers and the organizations they work for are approaching AI.
Looking for more content on AI? We’ve hosted multiple experts and industry leaders who have addressed AI-related topics through multiple angles, including metadata, marketing, discoverability, and more. Explore other AI-related sessions on the Tech Forum content repository.
