What's the difference between AI-assisted and AI-generated on KDP?

AI-generated means AI produced the substantial majority of the content with a human role limited to review and light editing. AI-assisted means a human substantially wrote, directed, or revised the output, even if AI was used for brainstorming, outlining, editing feedback, or drafting individual passages that were then substantially rewritten. KDP requires disclosure only for AI-generated content, not AI-assisted content.

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Do I Have to Disclose AI Use on Amazon KDP?

Q: Do I have to disclose AI use on Amazon KDP?

Only if the content is AI-generated, meaning AI produced the substantial majority of it. Amazon KDP's own content guidelines state that AI-assisted content, where you substantially wrote, edited, or directed the output, does not require disclosure. Most authors who used AI as a drafting or brainstorming tool, then wrote and edited the book themselves, fall on the AI-assisted side and do not need to check the AI-generated content box.

You used AI somewhere in writing your book and now you're staring at the "AI Content Disclosure" step in KDP, unsure if it applies to you. It depends entirely on one distinction Amazon draws — and most authors land on the side that doesn't require disclosure at all.

Book already flagged or suspended on KDP, not just checking the policy? Get the exact evidence checklist and a ready-to-send Plan of Action for KDP's real appeal process. Get your appeal packet →

The honest answer Only if your content is AI-generated — meaning AI produced the substantial majority of it, with your role limited to reviewing and approving. If you used AI to brainstorm, outline, get editing feedback, or draft passages you then substantially rewrote yourself, that's AI-assisted, and Amazon's own KDP content guidelines are explicit: AI-assisted content does not require disclosure. Most authors who "used AI" in some way during their process fall here, not in the disclosure-required category.

The line Amazon actually draws

This is the part that gets flattened into "you have to disclose AI now" by a lot of blog posts written to rank, not to be accurate. KDP's content guidelines split AI use into two categories, and only one triggers the disclosure requirement at publishing:

Category	What it means	Disclosure at publish?
AI-generated	AI produced the substantial majority; you reviewed and approved	Yes — check the box, describe it
AI-assisted	You substantially wrote, edited, or directed the work; AI helped along the way	No — not required

Brainstorming a plot with AI, then writing the book yourself: AI-assisted. Asking AI to fix pacing in a chapter you wrote: AI-assisted. Feeding AI a one-line prompt and publishing what came back with light edits: AI-generated. The test is who actually did the substantial writing, not whether an AI tool was open at any point in your process.

Why this confusion is worth clearing up now

Amazon has been actively enforcing its content policies around AI-generated books, and the guidelines themselves have shifted more than once, which is exactly why so many authors are unsure where they stand. Getting the category wrong in either direction has a real cost: under-disclosing risks a suspension if AI-generated content should have been flagged and wasn't; over-disclosing when you didn't need to can needlessly plant doubt about a book you substantially wrote yourself.

Exact wording, either way

If you land on AI-generated, here's what the disclosure should say:

"This book contains AI-generated [content type], created using [tool]. Reviewed by [your name] on [date]."

If you land on AI-assisted, you don't need to disclose anything to Amazon — but a private record still has real uses (your own editing process, an agent or publisher who asks, or peace of mind if your writing is ever questioned):

"[Tool] was used for [what it helped with]. Substantially written, edited, and directed by [your name]. Reviewed on [date]."

If you're worried about being wrongly accused A different, related fear shows up constantly in self-publishing communities: authors who used little or no AI, worried a reader or reviewer will falsely accuse them of it anyway. A dated record of your actual process, kept before anyone asks, is the calmest answer to that — not proof in a legal sense, but a real, timestamped account of what you did and when.

Generate the right wording for your book

Tell DisclosureTrail whether your content was AI-generated or AI-assisted, and it gives you the correct KDP wording (or tells you plainly that you don't need to disclose), plus a downloadable, dated record either way. Free, no login, nothing stored on our end.

Generate my KDP disclosure →