Bologna fair: AI front and center
Panels at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair this week kept returning to AI — both the opportunities for creators and the legal and ethical hazards publishers face. The 63rd Bologna fair opened April 14, drawing exhibitors and sparking industry debate about how artificial intelligence should be governed in children’s publishing. (publishersweekly.com) (english.news.cn)
Artificial intelligence kept surfacing across the first days of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, turning a children’s publishing market into a live argument about rules, rights, and tools. (publishersweekly.com) The 63rd fair is running from April 13 to April 16 at the Bologna Exhibition Centre, with about 1,500 exhibitors from 90 countries and regions. Publishers Weekly reported that AI was a recurring topic in panels during the first two days. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) (publishersweekly.com) One dedicated summit at BolognaBookPlus on April 14 framed the debate in business terms. Its sessions covered “agentic systems” in editorial workflows, data-driven commissioning, AI-generated content, and “control, compensation & creative rights.” (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) A second strand of programming treated AI as part of a broader shift in how children read. The fair’s new Digital Narratives Observatory, held April 15 and April 16, examined interactive books, transmedia storytelling, and “AI-mediated collaborative creation,” and said it would present its first report on reading in digital environments. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) That mix of topics reflects how the fair has widened beyond print picture books into rights trading, licensing, and general publishing. Bologna now bundles the children’s fair with BolognaBookPlus and the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair for Kids, creating one marketplace where editorial, legal, and technology questions meet. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com 1) (bolognachildrensbookfair.com 2) The AI discussion is also arriving after a year of sharper anxiety from illustrators and agents. At the 2025 fair, Publishers Weekly reported that image-generation tools had already pushed professionals to question consent, training data, and whether speed and low cost would undercut human-made illustration. (publishersweekly.com) This year’s program showed publishers trying to separate practical uses from legal exposure. The April 14 summit included speakers from Pan Macmillan, DK, Abrams Books, the Italian Publishers Association, and the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence under the auspices of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, with sessions on truth, rights, and licensing rather than just productivity. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) The fair itself is still centered on children’s books, illustration, and scouting new talent, but the 2026 agenda shows publishers treating AI less as a side topic than as part of contract, workflow, and reading-policy decisions. In Bologna this week, the question was no longer whether AI had reached children’s publishing, but who gets to set the terms. (bolognachildrensbookfair.com) (publishersweekly.com)
