Former PRH c.e.o. Dohle says 'huge opportunities' of AI outweigh threats

Markus Dohle, the former c.e.o. of Penguin Random House, spoke about the "huge opportunities" offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the Publisher’s Weekly (PW) conference "Artificial Intelligence: Revolution and Opportunity in Trade Publishing" yesterday (27th September).

Dohle stepped down in 2022, after 15 years at PRH, following an antitrust trial in the US that blocked the merger of PRH and Simon & Schuster. In his opening keynote speech, he said: "AI is the next inflection point in the digital transformation of our industry, and the huge opportunities it offers outweigh by far the potential challenges and threats we have to meet.”

The former c.e.o. said that the industry is in the best shape it’s ever been since the invention of the printing press, and that it has "significantly benefited from digital developments and tools".

He added: "I want all of us to acknowledge that information technology and digital capabilities have made us better and faster at what we do as publishers and, ultimately, it has made us financially more robust."

Generative AI will "further transform, enhance and optimise the reach of services, and back office functions of publishing", Dohle said.

He used the example of performance marketing tools to create better marketing for books, as well as improving recommendation engines for readers to discover new titles. 

Illustration and writing were areas that Dohle said were "certainly something we have to carefully navigate and regulate". He emphasised the importance of copyright protection and author compensation, calling it "the lifeblood of our industry".

Dohle ended his speech by saying: "I’m super excited, and can’t wait for us to become even better, much better, in connecting our office with more readers around the world than ever before."