The short answer: yes. Amazon allows books that were created with the help of AI. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) asks for one thing only: if content in your book was generated by an AI, you have to say so when you upload it. If you wrote the book yourself and used AI only to improve it, you don't have to declare anything.
The rest of this article is about that one distinction. It decides which box you tick on KDP, and it is more precise than most people think.
What Amazon actually requires
In its KDP content guidelines, Amazon distinguishes two ways of using AI:
AI-generated content, in Amazon's definition, is text, images or translations created by an AI-based tool. This applies explicitly even if you applied substantial edits afterwards. If you publish AI-generated content, you must tell Amazon when you publish a new book, and again when you edit and republish an existing one.
AI-assisted means you created the content yourself and used AI-based tools to edit, refine, error-check or otherwise improve it. You do not need to tell Amazon about that.
Two consequences are often overlooked:
- Editing does not make AI text yours. A chapter the AI wrote stays AI-generated for Amazon, even if you rearranged every other sentence afterwards.
- Text, images and translations are declared separately. A novel you wrote yourself with an AI-generated cover is AI-generated as far as the cover is concerned. An AI translation of your own book is an AI-generated translation.
What this means when you write with Hermes 3000
Hermes is built so that you write and the AI helps. How much it takes on is your decision, and that is exactly what determines what you declare on KDP:
| What you do in Hermes | How KDP classifies it |
|---|---|
| You write, the AI gives feedback on a chapter, style or suspense | AI-assisted, nothing to declare |
| Spelling, wording suggestions for your own text, tightening and polishing | AI-assisted, nothing to declare |
| Keeping track of characters, places and plot, consistency checks, quality analysis | AI-assisted, nothing to declare |
| You dictate and speech recognition types along | your own text |
| The AI writes paragraphs or chapters that you keep, even if you revise them | AI-generated, declare it |
| AI translation of your book into another language | AI-generated (translation), declare it |
| AI-generated cover or illustrations | AI-generated (images), declare it |
Most authors who work with Hermes write their chapters themselves and use the AI as a sparring partner. For them the answer is simple: no box to tick. If you let the AI write passages, you declare it. That is not a stigma, it is simply the rule.
How you know what came from where
After a few months on a manuscript, nobody remembers which paragraph they typed, which they dictated and which the AI suggested and they then rewrote. That is what the provenance record in Hermes is for.
Hermes doesn't guess afterwards; it records where text comes from while you write: whether you typed or dictated it, whether the AI generated it, and how much you revised it afterwards. Before you upload, you can see whether and where your book contains AI-generated passages, and answer KDP's question honestly instead of estimating. We describe how it works in detail in Provenance records instead of watermarking.
What about copyright?
The KDP declaration is a question Amazon asks. Whether your text is protected by copyright is a separate question. Under German law (§ 2(2) UrhG), copyright protects only personal intellectual creations, i.e. works made by humans; purely machine-generated text is generally not protected. Other jurisdictions take similar positions. What you wrote yourself is protected, and that doesn't change because an AI gave you feedback or flagged typos.
Here too it helps to know, and be able to show, what came from you. The law is still developing; if a lot depends on it, ask a lawyer.
And other platforms?
Every platform has its own rules. BoD (Books on Demand), for example, recommends voluntary labeling when AI was involved in creating a book, in a press release from March 2026, and answers the question in its help pages for authors. Check the current guidelines of the platform you publish with before you upload.
Checklist before uploading to KDP
- Open the provenance record and check whether your text contains AI-generated passages.
- Look at the cover and illustrations separately: were they made with an image generator?
- Translation? If the book is an AI translation, that is a separate declaration.
- In the KDP form, answer the question about AI-generated content for text, images and translations separately.
- Check your answers again every time you republish an edited version.
As of 23 September 2026. This article summarizes Amazon KDP's public guidelines and is not legal advice. Amazon may change its rules; the current version of the KDP content guidelines applies.