The Publishers Association exists to ensure that publishers across the U.K. can thrive. This year has already had many challenges, but as an industry we remain united on many issues and continue to show strength in the face of adversity. My main priority this year is to continue to communicate the value of this incredible industry, and the benefits it brings to both the economy and wider society.

When I became CEO in 2022, I said there were three areas of focus in my mind for our members: our sector’s value, purpose, and influence. These focus areas have not changed, while some of the issues that so many of our members face are new.

For instance, alongside the Spring Budget in March, we saw publication of a report from Sir Patrick Vallance that set out new recommendations for the government on how to protect the U.K.’s gold standard copyright regime. This was alongside its laudable ambition to maximize the U.K.’s potential in AI development. It follows months of hard work from the Publishers Association and the industry to bring attention to the need for balanced regulation when it comes to AI development.

AI and publishing

AI innovation and publishing go hand-in-hand. Publishing is an innovative, future-looking industry that has invested in AI to create benefits for business and consumers. AI is being applied throughout the value chain by academic, education, and consumer publishers and frees people to focus on creative, value-added work. Publishers also play a role in AI innovation through the provision of curated, machine-readable text and data.

As both users and facilitators of AI, publishers support AI innovation. However, it’s vital that AI innovation does not exploit rightsholders and creators, and undermine human creativity. Technologies such as ChatGPT throw up legal and moral questions about the use of creators’ and rightsholders’ work. As generative AI can only function because of the underlying data it’s trained on, rightsholders and creators must be paid for the use of their work through licensing and be able to withhold consent.

That is why we welcomed the government’s decision not to proceed with a blanket exception to copyright for text and data mining. We will continue to work with the Intellectual Property Office and industry on how best to progress.

Children’s literacy

Another priority for the Publishers Association this year is ensuring that children and their families still have access to reading for pleasure and books, as many struggle with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. This year, the Publishers Association and its members are working with the National Literacy Trust to support and further develop two key projects.

One of these is combatting book poverty by ramping up the work of the Primary School Library Alliance. At the moment, it is not a statutory requirement for primary schools to have a library and, as a result, many children who desperately need access to books do not have it through a school library. Our publishers are continuing their support to create new libraries in schools across the country, while we explore how we are to translate this successful model into a commitment from the major political parties in the next General Election.

Secondly, we are directly supporting the literacy and reading of children in the poorest communities by scaling up support for the Literacy Project. The Literacy Project matches the unique assets of the publishing industry–people, authors, and books, with localized initiatives and organizations to raise literacy levels through targeted and concentrated action.

The mission is to drive up low levels of literacy and social mobility in the U.K.’s poorest communities. There are 46 Literacy Project initiatives already running across the U.K.

Finally, we will continue to work on ongoing diversity and inclusion, and sustainability initiatives. Both of these are areas of huge importance to the Publishers Association, and I am proud to have launched our newest Inclusivity Action Plan this year. While there is still work to be done on both of these issues, we are making great progress.

There is lots of important work to do this year, across a great many complex and challenging issues. I have witnessed firsthand what the Publishers Association can achieve, and I look forward to delivering on these priorities and further driving the organization forward.

Alongside our members we are a community, and I look forward to working with them, the team here at the Publishers Association, and our international partners to make this happen.

Dan Conway is CEO, Publishers Association.