Powell's City of Books' use of AI is inexcusable, but unsurprising

A critique of the largest bookstore in the world and their use of AI generation

Look closely at the melting spines and the wolf’s legs

The decision for a "fiercely independent" bookstore – the largest independent bookstore in the world, no less – to utilize AI generation in the creation of Powell's branded merchandise is inexcusable. It's a slap in the face of hardworking artists. AI is a plagiarism machine that's actively robbing people of their work, very much including artists whose work lines every wall of Powell's, and of every bookstore: Authors.

An anonymous Powell’s staffperson reached out to us directly to describe the new line of Powell’s merch (pictured throughout this piece) as “AI slop.” We can’t say more without causing potential blowback to this person, but they provided enough evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that all of the designs included here are AI-generated.

In 2016, Hayao Miyazaki called AI generation an "insult to life itself."

It is.

It's an insult to life, to the human capacity for creating art, and to the writers that Powell's ostensibly exists to celebrate. It's our opinion that a bookstore resorting to the use of AI reflects a rot at the core of the organization. A growing lack of respect for the creation of art, instead regarding it as simply another of the commodities that Powell's profits from. Art is no longer prioritized and celebrated, just written in as a category on a quarterly profit-and-loss statement

This attitude of deprioritizing and disrespecting the art they trade in, of course, is also reflected in Powell's numerous examples of treating booksellers in this industry as disposable when, in fact, they are the backbone of all bookstores everywhere. It's the passion of booksellers, and their eagerness to connect readers to art, that make bookstores special.

There’s a reason why the cat feels 'uncanny’ (it’s AI)

.. and it was Powell's staff that immediately raised concerns about the sale of AI generated Powell's branded merchandise. As far as we've been told, its creation faced vocal opposition at every stage – except, of course, management approval for the outside contractor hired to create it. So this budding public backlash isn't blindsiding anyone on the executive team at Powell’s. They were warned numerous times that this is a bad idea.

As increasingly common with Powell’s management, worker concerns were ignored.

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ILWU Local 5 (@ilwulocal5) that represents Powell's booksellers recently published an exposè on how Powell's has been censoring their own staff.

Just a few days after the “Booksellers’ Best of 2024” list was published and emailed out to newsletter subscribers, Powell’s leadership pulled the list from the website.

The list reappeared two weeks later with only 25 of the original 86 bookseller recommendations. Booksellers had been assured in the original solicitation of picks that, similar to the Staff Top 5s project in previous years, all staff recommendations would be featured on the site, though not all would be featured in store. In response to employee inquiry, Powell’s leadership offered a variety of competing explanations for the change, including a claim that the current website infrastructure would not support a list of the original size — despite the fact that it had already supported this list and lists of greater size. These explanations were also undercut by the discovery of a manager's document dividing books from the original Booksellers’ Best list into three categories: “Of Most Concern,” “Questionable,” and “Seem Harmless.” Titles deemed objectionable included many books about Palestine, but also books like Bog Myrtle, a children's fable about workers’ rights.

It should come as no surprise, then, that ILWU Local 5 members from Powell’s have been urging the company to take a stand against AI and the automation of jobs that were formerly the exclusive domain of paid, human staff.

.. but Powell’s management ignoring worker concerns over their unethical business practices — refusing to live up to all the good will extended to them by citizens of Portland — is clearly nothing new. We’ve had multiple current and former staff members of Powell’s anonymously reach out to us since we started speaking out on Instagram about this recent issue and share stories of how they felt disregarded, ignored, and disrespected during their time at Powell’s.

And of course, an article written for Portland Monthly in November 2023 revealed that Powell’s will happily profit off of your labor for 24+ years, and still pay you less than $19 an hour. A living wage in Portland is $26.84 an hour as of 2025, according to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That is, of course, unless they lay you off with little warning — which is tragically timely, as we’ve heard rumblings from several sources that multiple rounds of layoffs have begun (again) at Powell’s.

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The closer you look, the more obvious it becomes that AI had a hand in making this

I’m tired of people acting like being critical of Powell’s is an attack on the literary backbone of Portland.

— an anonymous Powell’s employee I spoke with

In our industry, Powell's is a juggernaut. Nobody wants to speak out about them because of professionalism culture. Because of potential damage to employment in the industry. Because of public backlash for being critical of people's childhood favorite bookstore. Because we’re book people, and we’re nice here. We’re all friends! Same team, same team!

We’ve personally heard breathless defense for Powell’s in discussions about the health of the bookselling industry, describing a “blow to the industry” that would be suffered if Powell’s was to shutter forever. Of course, this rhetoric is commonly deployed to the benefit of capitalist “job creators.” It’s treated as a net good for bookselling jobs to be available, regardless if those jobs are primarily underpaid, overworked seasonal positions that are cut as soon as possible.

Powell’s position of dominance in Portland is treated as a given, like they’ve been given impunity to act in the most nakedly profiteering manner they want — despite the fact that they have a well-paid executive team (like any normal bookstore, right?), routinely fuck over their staff, and think that pushing AI slop products isn’t grotesque behavior for a retailer that trades in art.

There’s a non-zero chance that we face repercussions within our industry for publishing this. But this recent rollout of AI-generated garbage is too galling for us to sit by and quietly accept without saying anything. It is our opinion that Powell's would only do this for two reasons:

They think you won't notice, or they think you won't care.

We noticed. We care. Do you?

Powell’s customer service email is help@powells.com.

AI generation has no place in bookstores.

Why did they think this was okay? (pictured: Hayao Miyazaki)