According to The New York Times this week, Nihar Malaviya, the CEO of Penguin Random House, expressed hope that artificial intelligence (AI) could make it simpler to sell more book titles without employing more people in the future.

The chief of Penguin Random House, one of the “Big Five” international publishing conglomerates that employs thousands of people and controls the English-language mainstream publishing market, was profiled in the report.

The article mentioned that Malaviya was concentrating on expansion, noting that the business used voluntary buyouts and laid off about 60 employees the previous year.

In 2020, Penguin Random House attempted to purchase Simon & Schuster, another Big Five publisher, but the deal was cancelled around two years later due to antitrust concerns.

Artificial intelligence is being considered by Indian publishers as a means of facilitating book creation. Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of Harper Collins India, pointed out last year that AI narrators may expedite the publishing of translated works.

Large language models and the AI tools they enable are being investigated by publishers globally, but some readers are concerned that they will be used to automate book acquisitions in an industry already notorious for its lack of diversity or to replace authors.