This post discusses suspected AI-generated fiction submissions, author verification, and their impact on small presses.
You can also read and download our full report: The Machines Are Coming for Your Masthead
We were asked this question on a small-publishers panel at the World Fantasy Convention in 2025. Our Managing Editor, C.L., remembers answering pretty confidently. AI is glorified predictive text. It can produce words that technically hang together, but it cannot innovate, cannot imagine, and will never write anything worth reading.
He still believes that. We still believe that. Mostly.
What we no longer believe is that we will always be able to look at an AI story and know .
Bona Books accidentally bought an AI story. Indeed, we very nearly bought two , with a further three longlisted.