Macmillan Scraps AI Assistant NOA After 2025 Sunset, as Staff Called It Unreliable
Updated
Updated · WIRED · Oct 28
Macmillan Scraps AI Assistant NOA After 2025 Sunset, as Staff Called It Unreliable
1 articles · Updated · WIRED · Oct 28
Summary
October 2025 brought a company-wide email telling Macmillan staff that Chaptr would sunset NOA, ending an AI assistant the publisher had introduced with a high-profile internal rollout in January 2024.
Employees told WIRED the tool was unreliable and little used, even though staff were encouraged to use it for emails, marketing research, performance-review goals, and limited excerpts of authors’ manuscripts despite warnings it could hallucinate.
Macmillan said the account did not accurately reflect how NOA was communicated and said Gemini is used for business, not under any leadership directive to evaluate agent submission letters.
The episode highlights a wider Big Five publishing conflict: publishers are testing AI tools while some are also suing AI companies, and authors who have sold more than 30 million copies say AI use is eroding trust and pushing some toward self-publishing.