London Fair tackles AI

At the London Book Fair in March, publishers talked less about flashy artificial intelligence tools and more about where the technology fits into day-to-day book work. (sixredmarbles.com) The fair ran March 10 to March 12 at Olympia London, drew 1,005 exhibitors and more than 33,000 visitors, and marked the last London Book Fair at Olympia before a move to Excel London in 2027. (publishersweekly.com) London Book Fair describes itself as a trade show for the global publishing business, with rights deals at its center and more than 100 seminars across stages including the Tech Theatre and Main Stage. (londonbookfair.co.uk) At one exhibitor’s stand, the busiest conversations were about reducing repetitive editorial work, improving accessibility, and managing content at scale rather than replacing editors or authors. The same company said its day-one Tech Theatre session on curriculum development drew about 110 people. (sixredmarbles.com) That focus matched the public program. Publishers Weekly’s preview highlighted panels on “AI copyright battles,” AI-driven search and book discovery, audiobook growth, and market trends, alongside sessions tied to the United Kingdom’s National Year of Reading. (publishersweekly.com) Penguin Random House United Kingdom chief executive Tom Weldon opened the fair by attacking what he called the “theft of content” by artificial intelligence companies and arguing for transparency, consent, and compensation. In the same appearance, he said publishers are “not anti-AI” and can use it to remove repetitive tasks. (publishersweekly.com) The argument underneath those debates is simple: publishers are trying to use software to speed up tagging, formatting, translation, and production without handing over copyrighted books or losing editorial control. That is why fair conversations kept circling back to oversight, ethics, and quality checks. (sixredmarbles.com; publishersweekly.com) Accessibility came up in the same practical terms. Exhibitors described demand for ways to make content more inclusive without adding large amounts of manual work to already stretched production teams. (sixredmarbles.com) Curriculum development was part of that pitch. The Tech Theatre session from Six Red Marbles focused on how artificial intelligence tools could help build educational materials faster and at larger scale, a sign that education publishing is treating AI as workflow infrastructure rather than a consumer novelty. (sixredmarbles.com) The fair’s broader agenda also put AI next to another pressure point: reading itself. Emma Lowe, the fair director, said much of the 2026 program was anchored by the National Year of Reading, a Department for Education campaign aimed at reversing declines in leisure reading among young people. (publishersweekly.com) That left London with a split screen: one set of sessions asked how publishers should use new tools, while another asked how to keep people reading books at all. By the end of the fair, the industry’s answer looked less like an embrace of automation than a search for tighter, cheaper, and more defensible workflows. (publishersweekly.com; sixredmarbles.com)