London Book Fair: AI and accessibility

At the London Book Fair in March, artificial intelligence stopped looking like a side demo and started showing up as a production tool, especially in editorial work and accessibility planning. (publishingperspectives.com (sixredmarbles.com)) The fair ran March 10 to 12 at Olympia London, with a seminar program that Publishing Perspectives said included hundreds of speakers on artificial intelligence, rights and licensing, audio, translation, and freedom-to-publish issues. It was also the last London Book Fair at Olympia before the event moves to Excel London in 2027. (publishingperspectives.com (publishingperspectives.com)) One post-fair account from services company Six Red Marbles said publishers were asking for “practical ways” to improve how content is created, reviewed, and delivered. The company said its day-one Tech Theatre session on artificial-intelligence-powered curriculum development drew about 110 attendees. (sixredmarbles.com)) In publishing, accessibility usually means building books and learning materials so they work for more readers from the start, including people using screen readers, alternative formats, or image descriptions. Six Red Marbles said conversations at the fair focused on using artificial intelligence to reduce repetitive work, support accessibility, and handle content at scale without dropping human oversight. (sixredmarbles.com (sixredmarbles.com)) That emphasis landed in a market where rights deals still anchor the business. London Book Fair’s International Rights Centre calls itself the fair’s hub for rights sales, co-editions, licensing, translations, and adaptation meetings, and the fair says it brings together more than 32,000 publishing professionals. (londonbookfair.co.uk)) The rights conversation did not stop in London. On April 13, the eve of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, BolognaBookPlus hosted a seminar on children’s-book licensing and rights, and Publishers Weekly reported that the 2026 Bologna fair was bringing together roughly 1,500 exhibitors from 90 countries. (publishingperspectives.com (publishersweekly.com)) Bologna’s own coverage showed how commercial pressures and format shifts are colliding with those rights talks. Publishers Weekly said agents and rights directors were seeing demand for short, accessible, illustrated middle-grade series and warning that translation sales were being squeezed by growing English-language export sales. (publishersweekly.com)) Artificial intelligence also arrived at London under political pressure. Publishing Perspectives reported on March 19 that a United Kingdom government report on artificial intelligence and copyright had “loomed large” over fair discussions, even as publishers and authors welcomed signs of a policy reset but said uncertainty remained. (publishingperspectives.com)) That left the spring fair season with two linked tracks: how to use artificial intelligence inside publishing workflows, and how to control the rights, permissions, and standards around that use. In London, the talk centered on workflow and accessibility; in Bologna, it widened into licensing and export economics. (sixredmarbles.com (publishingperspectives.com (publishersweekly.com)) For publishers heading into the rest of 2026, the message from the trade-show circuit was less about whether to use artificial intelligence than where to draw the lines around quality, copyright, and access. London put those questions on the show floor before Bologna carried them into the rights market. (publishingperspectives.com (sixredmarbles.com (publishingperspectives.com))