AI in the Rights workflow

The Rights Together network held an online event to discuss how AI can be used to support the work of rights professionals in publishing. 

Margaret Szymczyk, Rights Director at John Murray Group Specialist, part of Hachette UK, chaired the discussion between Tim Spanner, Rights and Licensing Manager at Taylor and Francis Group, and George Walkley, an independent consultant specialising in AI and Publishing, who is also a Director of Bristol University Press, non-executive director of Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing and Chair of a Communications Group that includes a literary agency.

Here is a summary of the discussion and some useful take aways.  

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Are publishers using AI tools?

George Walkley has given training and consultancy to hundreds of different publishers globally. He has noticed that engagement with AI differs depending on sector. In his experience, Academic and STM publishers have been the most engaged with AI whereas in the trade sector, engagement with AI has been slower and more cautious.   This is likely down to the markets they operate in and the rights they have available to licence, for example concerns around AI generated illustrations and images have impacted on AI adoption in children’s and illustrated trade publishing.

George pointed out that AI is increasingly built into many of the systems and tools that we use on a day-to-day basis, for example, in email, meeting management and travel planning apps. Therefore, even if we aren’t seeking out AI tools, we may well be using them without realising.

Our RightsTogether survey

To coincide with this event, we carried out a survey to understand more about how rights professionals were using AI in the workplace.

As you might expect the results paint a mixed picture with some people actively embracing AI and others completely opposed to doing so.  Lack of training and lack of confidence in AI tools was high, and there was a healthy dose of scepticism about whether AI could deliver any meaningful benefits to rights work.

Read more here >

AI for augmentation and improvement

At Taylor & Francis, Tim reported that they have been actively encouraged to experiment with AI tools in their work. They benefit from having an internal, ring-fenced system, that can securely access company data.  Tim has made good use of this for rights work, including to brainstorm ideas for publishers to approach about particular books; to drafting contract clauses, and even using AI as a strategic sounding board.  Tim stressed that care should be taken to sanity check and verify AI outputs but feels that AI can be a valuable addition to the rights professionals’ toolkit.  He argues that it should be seen as a tool to augment and improve the work of rights professionals, rather than to replace processes.

Margaret noted that she had found AI helpful for planning trips to see international publishers and that she had been testing AI capabilities in converting hand-written text to digital (OCR) which it is getting better at.

Experiment with AI cautiously

George reminded attendees that despite its name, AI is not actually intelligent! An AI tool is simply giving you the most probable response to an enquiry and doing so with complete confidence. It can be completely confident about something it knows nothing about!

George suggested looking at paid plans for the AI tool you want to use as even the lowest cost plans will give you additional security that can protect your data.  If you are on a free tier, it is highly likely that the price is effectively your data, which will be used to train the model further.

Tim stressed the importance of ensuring there is always a human in the loop to verify outputs, which you ultimately need to take responsibility for.  He also talked about being open and transparent with stakeholders about how AI is being used.

What will the future bring for AI and rights?

To a certain extent, we need to get comfortable with the fact that AI is now a part of our lives whether we like it or not. As a result, we will need to work out how to licence rights in a way that protects our content without hampering it’s potential. Discussions around what we mean by AI and differentiating between specific use cases will be key to this.

The rights we license will change as much as how we license them. For example, George asked whether if a reader can buy a book in any language and use an AI reader to translate it instantly, and access it immediately, is that good enough, even if the quality of the translation is not brilliant?  For some books, it might be.

Tim spoke about AI assisted translation making it quicker and easier for licensees to get books to market or agree translation deals that would not have viable before, both of which could create an upturn in translation rights licensing. He also pointed to opportunities for audio rights sales in international markets now that AI narration is of such high quality.

George mentioned that in addition to publishers licensing their content for model training, there is also value in licensing content for retrieval purposes, for example displaying excerpts with citations, or creating summaries.  Margaret stressed that rights professionals need to carve these rights out as separate, licensable items, in order to maximise potential, as well as ensuring the publisher has acquired the necessary rights in the first place, to enable them to be licensed on.

There are ongoing copyright cases going through the courts globally, as well as proposed changes to legislation which will impact rights and licensing opportunities. In the meantime, it is important to fully consider potential rights deals spanning a whole range of AI use cases if we are to prove to legislators that there is a functioning licensing market that is worth protecting.

Permission to experiment is key

All of the speakers noted concerns around AI, particularly in terms of unauthorised use of copyright material and concern for the impact of AI on the work of creatives and translators.   They also felt that it was important to be aware that AI might not save time in the way that is expected, because whilst it speeds up one task it might then create secondary tasks, such as output review, which need to be actioned instead.

Margaret urged people not to underestimate how quickly AI will change our jobs. It is, therefore, really important to engage. George pointed out that it is very hard to get a good understanding of what AI is capable of if you aren’t using it yourself.

The speakers suggested that rights professionals should ask their organisations for both training on using AI in the workplace and for permission to take time to experiment (in a controlled, low risk way) in order to understand the benefits and the pitfalls and to inform future licensing deals. Given the lack of confidence reported in the survey, this feels like an important action. Afterall, even if we aren’t using AI ourselves, there is every chance that our authors, suppliers, customers and colleagues will be.  Forearmed is forewarned and all that… 

The Rights Together Programme Committee would like to thank Margaret, George and Tim for their participation in what was an excellent session.

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Useful links

The Intelligence Multiplier: How leaders use AI tools and human decisions to make better strategy by George Walkley is publishing in December 2026 from Practical Inspiration Publishing.

Discover a range of AI Training courses at IPG’s A Place for Publishing Excellence

Sign up to George Walkley’s weekly AI newsletter

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IMAGE CREDIT: Photo by Ömer Tosun: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-laptops-on-a-wooden-table-7500056/