Do you have to disclose AI on Amazon KDP?

KDP's AI policy is one section of the KDP Content Guidelines, headed "Artificial intelligence (AI) content (text, images, or translations)". The page carries no date, so read it as it stood on 18 October 2026. It makes four points: one duty, two definitions and one warning.

1. The duty. You must tell KDP about AI-generated text, images or translations when you publish a new book, and again when you edit and republish one. AI images include the cover and interior art. Then comes the line most authors are looking for: "You are not required to disclose AI-assisted content."
2. AI-generated. Text, images or translations that an AI tool created. Amazon says this label sticks "even if you applied substantial edits afterwards".
3. AI-assisted. You created the content and used AI tools to "edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve" it. The same applies if AI helped you brainstorm ideas but you wrote the text yourself. Amazon says it does not need to hear about either.
4. The warning. Both kinds must still meet every content guideline, including other people's intellectual property rights.

The whole test is who created the words. Amazon does not count how many suggestions you accepted or which tool you used.

AI-generated vs AI-assisted comes down to one question: did a tool write the words, images or translation, or did you? The table applies Amazon's two definitions to eight common cases. Where Amazon's page names the case, the last column says so. Where it is silent, the row is our reading of its words, marked as such.

The line moves inside a single tool, so Grammarly counts as AI content only when it writes the words. Grammarly fixing a comma is assistance. If you ask it, or any chatbot, to write a new paragraph and you publish that paragraph, the paragraph is AI-generated. The guide to editing with ChatGPT shows how to keep suggestions on the assisted side.

No, on our reading of Amazon's words, as long as the report's sentences stay out of the book. A manuscript report is a separate document you read. It suggests; you decide and you write. That matches Amazon's AI-assisted case, where the tool advises or improves and you create the content.

The $19 Manuscript AI report is that kind of document. It answers eight editorial questions about the whole book, such as how well the chapters flow and whether the reader will know what to do next. For each chapter it gives a summary, recommendations, a word count, reading time and two readability scores. It writes none of your book and changes none of your text. The manuscript stays yours: the file is deleted within 48 hours of delivery and never used to train AI. How we keep your book safe has the detail.

One caution applies to every tool. If you copy a sample rewrite from any report or chatbot into your manuscript word for word, those words were created by AI.

Sort your AI use into the two buckets before you start, and the question itself is quick. KDP's help pages describe the setup steps but do not show the AI question itself, so the steps below follow those pages and mark where they stop.

1. Sort first. List what you used AI for, under text, images and translation. Put each use in a bucket using the table above.
2. Start the title. On KDP's Create a Book page the steps are: go to your Bookshelf, click "+ Create", then choose the format.
3. Enter the book details. Title, author, description, keywords and categories come first.
4. Upload and preview. This step takes your manuscript and cover, and it is where authors report the AI question. Answer yes only for AI-generated text, images or translation. Assisted use alone is a no.
5. Repeat per format. KDP sets up the eBook, paperback and hardcover separately, so check the answer on each one.
6. Update when you republish. Amazon's rule covers edits and republishing too. If a new edition adds AI-generated material, change your answer then.
7. Keep a record. Save drafts and notes on which tool did what. KDP lets you appeal a removal, and a record makes the appeal concrete.

KDP's guidelines say it enforces them with "machine learning, automation, and dedicated teams of human reviewers". It rejects or removes content that breaks them, investigates books it is told about, and may ask for more information before a book goes on sale. If it removes a title, it tells you, and you can appeal.

The guidelines do not list a separate penalty for skipping the AI question. Amazon publishes no list of what gets a KDP account terminated, for AI or anything else. One author's account of a termination after two non-fiction books, in a 37-comment r/selfpublish thread, shows how little Amazon explains; the thread records no reason from Amazon. The same page also bars book descriptions that mislead customers.

Volume is capped. KDP's Create a Book page allows up to 2 new titles per format created, and 2 submitted, each week, resetting every Sunday at midnight UTC. Many guides still repeat a limit of three new titles a day, the figure KDP confirmed to the Authors Guild in September 2023. The weekly limit is what KDP's own page says today.

A traditional publisher's contract can ask more of you than Amazon does. The Authors Guild published model AI clauses for trade book contracts in April 2026 and updated them on 8 May 2026. Authors and agents can ask a publisher to adopt them; publishers are free to say no.

Two clauses matter for an author using AI tools:

• Your use. You cannot be required to use generative AI. You must tell the publisher about any AI-generated text in the manuscript, and the model caps it at "de minimis" or 5%, left in brackets for the parties to choose.
• The publisher's use. The publisher may not upload your manuscript or personal details to a consumer chatbot without your written permission. It may not use AI to substantially edit the book, apart from basic spelling and grammar checkers.

The Guild's earlier clauses, from 1 June 2023, already asked authors to disclose AI-generated text, with the same 5% cap. If you sign a contract, look for its AI clause and compare it with the Guild's model.

The Guild also runs a "Human Authored" mark for book covers, open to every author published in the US since 2 March 2026. It costs $10 a title for non-members. A book qualifies if humans wrote the text; AI spelling and grammar checkers, research, brainstorming and outlining are allowed. It is voluntary, and Amazon does not ask for it.