Joanna Prior's Q&A on the future of AI in publishing
How do we see our core mission of publishing and storytelling evolving in a world where AI can create and summarize content? What must we protect, and what must we be willing to let go of?
Pan Macmillan is in the business of supporting and investing in human creativity. We’ve been going for over 180 years whilst that is no guarantee of future success - there is a resilience to our businesses that have survived a huge number of convulsive technologies that have challenged the way in which content is packaged to satisfy the need human beings have to read stories and learn about the world beyond their own experience. The digital revolution threatened to disrupt the printed book and we’re now selling more books in print than ever before despite a growth also in digital formats such as ebooks and audio. In other words the appetite for carefully curated and well presented content is bigger than ever. We have a product that people want. I’m reluctant to ascribe real originality to AI - despite its facility for mimicry and synthesis and summarisation. It doesn’t replace the unique voices, the moral complexity of a knotty philosophical argument, the witty original observations of human nature or the emotional highs and lows of first love. This is what we are here to discover, invest in and disseminate to a readership hungry for such work.
What we must let go of is the fear of technology itself; we should embrace AI as a creative and operational collaborator that frees humans to do more of what only we can do.
In a landscape of limited resources, how do you decide where to place your biggest bets? What's the one area—be it in technology, talent, or content—where you believe we must invest most aggressively to stay ahead?
Our investment priority is always going to be in content. That’s our expertise and where our true value lies (to our shareholder as well as to the good of the culture and humankind). We are looking for originality and authenticity. We will continue to value expertise and new thinking. Without our authors and illustrators we don’t have a business. We’ve been saying this for years and AI doesn’t change this.
But we need to understand how the world is changing around us and how technologies now exist that can rocket boost our abilities as publishers to reach a bigger readership, take away some of more tiresome, repetitive tasks and give us more time to do our most human work - which is often spending time with one another, especially our writers and illustrators - helping them to do their best work. So we need to invest in our people to learn about AI and figure out how best to use it.
On People & Culture: AI augmentation requires a new skillset and mindset. What are the key leadership qualities needed to guide our teams through this period of change, and what are you doing to foster that culture?
The next phase of publishing leadership isn’t about knowing all the answers. There are a lot of unknowns but we need to remain curious as leaders about the opportunities and also open to good ideas coming from literally anywhere in our organisation (or outside of it). I am very aware that our senior leadership at Pan Mac (only speaking for us here) has a potential credibility problem. We aren’t AI experts in the way we are perhaps content experts. So we’ve got a responsibility to speed up our personal learning journey and alongside that to LISTEN to those in our business, and those entering it now, whose facility with AI tools and comfort is far superior. As well as being curious and listening we also need to model resilience because we actually don’t know how all this is going to play out. The change is happening at pace and living with uncertainty is frightening at times and also tiring and so I think you need resilience too.
We’re encouraging a culture of innovation at Pan Macmillan. This is not just about AI, it’s about all kinds of entrepreneurial thinking. Our culture is underpinned by our values, newly articulated: Community, Curiosity and Integrity.
We want to unlock people’s creativity in thinking about the work they do and step out of the safe old ways of working. We are giving teams permission to test AI tools, to fail safely, and to share learnings openly. Leadership today is about creating psychological safety alongside creative ambition.
On Ethical Leadership: Our ethical guidelines around AI are a core principle. From your perspective, what is the most significant ethical risk we face, and how do we ensure we're not just creating guardrails but actively embedding a culture of ethical responsibility?
Ethical responsibility in AI is a huge topic that covers issues around bias, access and transparency. We’ve published our AI principles and created clear guidelines around our use of AI at Pan Mac that aim to protect our authors’ and illustrators’ proprietary work - and upholding of copyright is something we are vocal about - but it also means not using content without attribution and payment. We are in a position of trust with our readers and have contractual obligations to our writers and illustrators. Both could be eroded by AI.
We mitigate that by embedding ethics into our daily practice: clear attribution, transparency around AI use, and ongoing training for our teams. Ethics isn’t a checklist; it’s a culture of responsibility, one decision at a time.
On Innovation: Innovation often involves risk and failure. How do you, as a leader, create an environment where teams feel safe to experiment with new AI tools and content formats, even if the outcomes are uncertain?
Innovation only thrives in a culture where failure is okay, in that from failure, we learn. Fortunately we are in a risk business and the basic business model has a huge amount of failure built in. Hope triumphs over experience time and again in trade publishing. We put out over 1000 new product lines every year and only a proportion of our books turn a profit. So we manage failure and disappointment all the time. But when it comes to doing things differently, trialing new technologies or processes we have a different attitude which we need to battle with. We’re trying to model this from the top — celebrating learning as much as success. That might mean piloting an AI-assisted workflow or experimenting with new content formats and being honest about what worked and what didn’t.
On Talent & Skills: The roles of our staff are changing. Beyond technical skills, what are the most critical human skills—like creativity, critical thinking, or empathy—that you are prioritizing in hiring and development?
The most important human skills are creativity, critical thinking, empathy, and judgment. Technological fluency can be learned fast - those others are things that take a lifetime. Curiosity (a value of Holtzbrinck and Pan Mac) is critical. Engaging. We are all lifelong learners in publishing - that’s the great privilege of the work and now we’ve got new stuff to learn. When we hire we are always looking for talent and potential, but we get very distracted by experience. We must keep looking for the person who can ask better questions, see the connections across different disciplines, communicate clearly and forge relationships. Jobs are going to change - fast in some cases - we want adaptability, flexibility and people who like the idea of how tech can intersect with human creativity and distinctiveness.
On the Future of Discovery: With SEO's effectiveness declining and video on the rise, how do you see the discovery of books and authors fundamentally changing in the next 3-5 years? What role will our company play in shaping that future?
Discovery is shifting from search to serendipity. As SEO declines and video, influencers, and communities shape attention, our challenge is to ensure books are found in spaces where people are already inspired.
In the next three to five years, discovery will be more visual, social, and emotional — driven by trust networks rather than algorithms alone. Our role is to help authors build authentic relationships with readers and to use data and storytelling intelligence to reach them meaningfully.
On Legacy vs. Disruption: As established leaders in the media space, we carry a strong legacy. How do we balance honoring that legacy with the radical disruption needed to succeed? What's your personal "North Star" for navigating that tension?
Legacy is our strength - 180 years of Pan Macmillan gives us credibility and a deep understanding of the business of discovering talent, nurturing creative careers, responding to market demands. But we have to remain agile and curious. The balance lies in honouring our purpose while reinventing our methods.
My personal North Star would be to cleave to the human heart of publishing - always searching for the distinctive, authentic and expert talent. But never to be complacent or rest on past laurels. Our job is to serve our authors and to ensure what they write gets read by as many people as possible and their ideas find a place in the world. Why would we not embrace the latest tools that help us do this better?