Agents wary after MyPoolitzer launches AI-assisted submissions software at Frankfurt

Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted software aimed at helping editors and agents to sift through the "slush pile" was among the innovations being showcased at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. But agents say they’d be wary of relying on machines to recognise talent.

Berlin-based submissions management software MyPoolitzer has partnered with AI technology firm Quantification to create an AI-assisted submissions system which it claims is "poised to transform the manuscript evaluation process for agents and publishers". 

The software demonstrated at this year’s fair uses "cutting-edge large language model technology combined with classical natural language processing, to automatically assess manuscript quality based on four critical parameters: style fit, genre fit, predicted rating and sales potential". It gives each submitted manuscript a score ranging from 0 to 100 with the aim of helping agents and editors reduce the time sifting through submissions. 

Jost-Tilo Gehrke, chief executive officer of Berlin-based MyPoolitzer, said: "Our partnership with Quantification has enabled us to create a tool that not only saves time but also enhances the quality of manuscript selection."

The Bookseller asked two agents if they’d use AI-assisted technology to help them sort through submissions. 

Cathryn Summerhayes, agent at Curtis Brown, said: "I recently went to Korea on a publishing fellowship with a group of international publishers and AI was a massive hot topic, particularly because of translated works. But every conclusion drawn at the end of every session was that nothing can beat the human eye when it comes to judging the merit of a work.

"It would be fascinating to see [AI-assisted submissions software] in action. I represent Rebecca Watson (I Will Crash, Faber), who is an incredibly experimental novelist. I would love to see what an AI would make of her work. To a machine, it probably wouldn’t make sense, but it’s brilliant. I’d be interested in knowing if it can handle anything that isn’t traditionally linear or doesn’t follow the tropes and formats of a regular crime novel, for example. I feel like an AI would be massively in danger of only picking out stuff that’s incredibly obvious."

Laetitia Rutherford, agent at Watson Little, said: "Two writers I represent have been at the forefront of AI use in their work, in very different ways: Ajay Chowdhury writes crime fiction, has great knowledge of tech and sees AI as contributing to humans better working in a genre. Hannah Silva, poet and author of the genre-fluid memoir My Child, the Algorithm, has called for the need to ‘queer the algorithm’, as AI-power centres tend to reproduce prevailing biases. They are both right. But I believe AI analysis would be more relevant to genre fiction."

She added: "I don’t doubt the power of AI tools, and they are rapidly finessing, but currently, AI-generated prose is subtly (and/or grossly) flawed and needs human attention. Personally, I would resist using AI to assess manuscripts as I’m not currently looking for the kind of genre fiction that can be assessed according to pre-set fixed criteria. Literary form demands subtle qualitative analysis. I want to keep up this open-minded critical and emotional practice, good for the brain and good for readers’ choices too."