In advance of her keynote address at the Publishing Professionals Network conference in Berkeley, Calif., this Friday, veteran publicist Fauzia Burke spoke with PW about her perspective on artificial intelligence in book publishing. The founder of FSB Associates, author of Online Marketing for Busy Authors, and nearly three-decade veteran of the publishing technology landscape took an optimistic view of AI tools and applications, as well as the future of publishing.

You've positioned yourself as an advocate for AI in publishing. How would you describe your stance?

I've just been one of the few people in the industry who's been excited and cautiously optimistic about the role of AI in book publishing. I think the hesitation in book publishing towards adopting tech is the same over and over again. We just freaking don't. It's the same response: let's not deal with it, let's not talk about it, let's not do it. I'm just trying to get people excited and interested, at least in being curious.

Where do you recommend publishers start with AI applications?

I think where we start is really in marketing. Marketing is one of those pain points for everyone within publishing companies. People are burning out. There's way too much to do. There is not enough staff, and then the responsibility is being shifted to the authors. That's even more complicated. Nobody is writing the Great American novel on a press release. It's not going to devastate the world if we get a little help to write a press release or the back jacket copy or get metadata help.

How do you see AI working alongside humans in publishing?

I believe that the future for any of our jobs is not really AI or humans. It's the combination—AI with humans. As more content can be produced on scale, the value of content is going down. If everybody can post an Instagram photo that looks fantastic with our hair blowing in the wind and we're running on the beach or whatever AI creates for us, there's going to be so much of that that there's no value to it anymore. The key is authenticity, and that is only something a human can bring.

Can you give an example of how you've used AI in your publicity work?

A publicity client had an interview opportunity from a big publication, but the editor was on deadline and needed answers by tomorrow. The questions were thoughtful enough that I couldn't just make them up. My client was at a conference with back-to-back meetings and dinner plans—there was no way he could do it. In the past, I would have gathered information and created the answers. I didn't have time for that either, so I took transcripts from several podcasts the author had done about the book, plus the introduction of the book, fed that to ChatGPT, and had it answer those questions. It's something I could have done manually—AI just did it faster.

How do you address concerns about AI's impact on copyright and creative work?

The original sin of AI—a concept that comes from Thad Mcllroy—of stealing our material and not respecting copyright, is very important and completely legit. But why is the future always dystopian? Why can't we think of a future where AI solves our horrible problems of hunger and peace and curing cancer? AI cannot be original. It doesn't have the capacity to be original. We are original, and we can always create more originality every single day. AI is always going to be behind us, trying to replicate.

What AI tools do you recommend for publishers?

I love Gamma. It's software that creates presentations. You can also create web pages and documents. It's even easier than Canva. For market research, SparkToro is fantastic—it gives you not only demographics but also the websites most popular within that community, the Reddits that are most popular, the social media. For search, I use Perplexity a lot. Adobe Express has a new program for infographics. I still use Grammarly for editing—ChatGPT can sometimes rewrite text, and I don't want it rewritten. I just want my software to say the comma's out of place.

Do you think AI will replace jobs in publishing?

I don't think AI will replace jobs. I think it will change them all. By next year, if I'm hiring even an assistant, I will want them to be comfortable working in AI, because I don't want to pay them to do something AI can do in two minutes. I want them to use their intelligence and creativity in ways that AI cannot.

How do you see AI affecting the relationship between authors and publicity?

Publicity and marketing these days is really author-forward—it's author-dependent. Publishers are finding people who have a big following on TikTok, not necessarily from an MFA program with a brilliant book. For most authors who don't have that following, they have to build it. When I talk to authors about hiring me for publicity, I tell them it will probably not sell as many books as they would want. It's about getting you credibility, making sure people hear you, giving you the opportunity to talk about something that you've worked on for years. It might lead to book sales, but it might lead to speaking engagements or other opportunities.