Amazon's KDP Content Guidelines require you to disclose AI-generated images and translations as well as text, and they spell out that "AI-generated images include cover and interior images and artwork." An image an AI tool made is AI-generated even if you edited it heavily afterward. Art you or an illustrator created, then cleaned up with AI tools, counts as AI-assisted and needs no disclosure.
Our KDP AI disclosure guide covers the text side of the question. This post covers everything else: cover art, interior illustrations, picture books, maps and ornaments, machine translation, Amazon's own Kindle Translate, and Virtual Voice audiobooks. The rules are short. The hard part is applying them to how covers and translations are actually made.
What Amazon's guidelines actually say about images and translations
The whole policy fits in a few sentences on the Content Guidelines page. These are the parts that decide image and translation cases:
- Scope: Amazon requires you to inform it of "AI-generated content (text, images, or translations)" when you publish a new book or edit and republish an existing one.
- Images named explicitly: "AI-generated images include cover and interior images and artwork."
- The definition: AI-generated content is "text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool."
- Edits don't launder it: content an AI tool created is AI-generated "even if you applied substantial edits afterwards."
- The exemption: if you created the content and used AI tools "to edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve that content (whether text or images)," it is AI-assisted, and Amazon says "It is not necessary to inform us."
- Brainstorming: using AI to generate ideas, while you "ultimately created the text or images yourself," is also AI-assisted.
- Your responsibility: you must verify that all AI-generated and AI-assisted content follows the guidelines, "including by complying with all applicable intellectual property rights."
Two things follow. First, the test is who or what created the image, not how much work went in afterward. Second, the image clause is not limited to the front cover. Interior art, chapter ornaments, maps and back-cover illustrations all sit inside "interior images and artwork."
What happens to your answer
Amazon's guidelines do not say what it does with a disclosure, and they do not describe a public label for author-supplied AI art. When the rule launched in September 2023, the Associated Press reported that Amazon "will not be publicly identifying books with AI," a policy a spokesperson said it may revise. We found no Amazon announcement since then that changes that for covers or interiors.
Translations made by Amazon's own tool are a different story, as you'll see below: those carry a store label.
- Feb 2023Zarya of the Dawn decisionThe Copyright Office keeps protection for the comic's text and arrangement but finds the Midjourney images are not the product of human authorship. Source
- Sep 2023KDP adds AI disclosureAP reports Amazon now requires disclosure of AI-generated text, images or translations, and will not publicly identify AI books. Source
- Jan 2025Copyright Office Part 2 reportThe Office concludes prompts alone do not give users enough control to be authors of the output. Source
- Nov 2025Kindle Translate launches in betaAmazon's AI translation service for KDP authors; titles are labeled in the store. Source
- Jun 2026Kindle Translate reaches six languagesTranslations now run between English and Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese. Source
- Oct 2026Kindle Unlimited becomes Kindle+Eligible audiobooks, including Virtual Voice editions of KDP Select eBooks, join the subscription. Source
Covers: the five situations that cause confusion
Most cover questions come down to where the pixels came from. Walk through it with the decision tree, then read the cases that trip people up.
See every path
- Did an AI tool generate any image on the cover or inside the book, whether you prompted it, your designer did, or it came from a stock or premade library? Yes → Did a human then create the final image from scratch (drawn or painted by hand), using the AI output only as a reference they looked at? Yes → Most likely AI-assisted under Amazon's brainstorming wording, because a person created the image itself. Keep the working files that show the hand-made process.
- Did an AI tool generate any image on the cover or inside the book, whether you prompted it, your designer did, or it came from a stock or premade library? Yes → Did a human then create the final image from scratch (drawn or painted by hand), using the AI output only as a reference they looked at? No → Disclose AI-generated images. Amazon says AI-made images stay AI-generated even after substantial edits, and that covers cover art, interior images and artwork.
- Did an AI tool generate any image on the cover or inside the book, whether you prompted it, your designer did, or it came from a stock or premade library? No → Did you use AI tools on human-made art at all (upscaling, background removal, color correction, retouching)? Yes → Did the AI edit paint in new picture content that was not there before, such as a generated sky, figure or hands? Yes → Gray zone. Amazon's guidelines do not mention generative fill. Our view: if a visible element of the final image was created by AI, disclose it.
- Did an AI tool generate any image on the cover or inside the book, whether you prompted it, your designer did, or it came from a stock or premade library? No → Did you use AI tools on human-made art at all (upscaling, background removal, color correction, retouching)? Yes → Did the AI edit paint in new picture content that was not there before, such as a generated sky, figure or hands? No → AI-assisted. You created the art and used AI to edit or refine it, which Amazon says does not need disclosure.
- Did an AI tool generate any image on the cover or inside the book, whether you prompted it, your designer did, or it came from a stock or premade library? No → Did you use AI tools on human-made art at all (upscaling, background removal, color correction, retouching)? No → No image disclosure needed. Still answer the separate text and translation questions honestly.
1. You generated the cover art yourself
A cover built from Midjourney, DALL-E, Firefly or any other image generator is AI-generated. Typography, a title treatment and a series layout added on top do not change the status of the artwork underneath. Tick the images disclosure.
2. You generated it, then repainted or retouched it
This is the most common argument in author groups, and Amazon has already answered it. "Substantial edits afterwards" are expressly covered, so a cover that started as a generated image stays AI-generated however long you spent in Photoshop.
The edge case is a cover a person creates from scratch while using AI output only as a reference they looked at, the way an illustrator might use a mood board. Amazon's brainstorming wording ("ultimately created the text or images yourself") points toward AI-assisted there. If you rely on that reading, keep the sketches and layered files that show the image was made by hand.
3. A designer or premade shop made it
Your disclosure covers the book, not just your own keystrokes. If your designer generated the art, or a premade cover was built on AI imagery, the cover contains AI-generated images. Ask the designer directly, in writing, before you upload, and put the answer in your files.
4. Stock art
Stock libraries now carry AI-generated assets alongside photography and illustration. Check how a specific asset was made before you license it. If it was generated, it is an AI-generated image on your cover, even though you licensed it rather than prompted it.
5. Human art with AI cleanup
Upscaling a commissioned painting, removing a background, fixing color or retouching a stray mark all fit Amazon's "edit, refine, error-check, or otherwise improve" wording for images. That is AI-assisted and needs no disclosure.
Generative fill is the gray zone. When a tool paints in a sky, a hand or a figure that was never in the original, it is creating image content, not refining it. Amazon's guidelines don't address the case. Our view: if a visible element of the final cover was created by AI, disclose.
If you're making promo images from a finished cover, such as a 3D render for ads, those images sit outside the book file. Our free book mockup generator turns a cover you already have into those renders; the disclosure question is about the cover itself. Our 3D mockup walkthrough shows the full process.
Interior images, picture books and children's books
The same definition applies inside the book, and here it matters more, because illustrated books can contain dozens of images.
Picture books and illustrated children's books. If an AI tool produced the illustrations, the book contains AI-generated images, whether there are three of them or thirty. A human-written text does not change that; you answer the text and image questions separately. If a human illustrator created the art and you only used AI to check spelling or spot layout errors, both parts are AI-assisted.
Maps, ornaments and diagrams. Fantasy maps, chapter-header flourishes, scene-break glyphs and family trees are "interior images and artwork." If you generated them, disclose, even if they feel too small to count. Amazon's wording doesn't set a minimum.
Front and back matter. An AI-generated author photo or a generated illustration on the back cover is still an image in the book.
Here is how those cases, and the translation and audio cases below, line up side by side.
The copyright problem with AI covers and illustrations
Disclosure is one question. Ownership is another, and for illustrated books it can matter more.
In February 2023 the US Copyright Office reviewed Zarya of the Dawn, a comic whose images were generated with Midjourney. Its decision letter kept protection for the author's text and for "the selection, coordination, and arrangement" of text and images. It found the Midjourney images "are not the product of human authorship." Small hand edits did not rescue them: the letter says changes to the character's lips were "too minor and imperceptible" to supply the creativity copyright requires.
The Office generalized that position in Part 2 of its AI report, published in January 2025. It concluded that "prompts alone do not provide sufficient human control to make users of an AI system the authors of the output." It left room for protection where a human's own expressive input is perceptible in the output, or where a person creatively modifies or arranges AI material, decided case by case.
For a self-publisher, that means a few practical things:
- A cover whose art is purely generated may have no copyright owner, so a competitor reusing the image is hard to stop.
- In a picture book, your text and your arrangement of words and pictures can be protected even when the AI illustrations themselves are not.
- If you want art you can protect and license (for merch, audio covers, foreign editions), commission a human artist and get the rights in writing.
This is the US position, it is a summary, and it is not legal advice. Other countries treat computer-generated works differently.
AI translations and Kindle Translate
Amazon names translations in the same breath as text and images. Its definition covers "text, images, or translations created by an AI-based tool," and the "substantial edits" clause applies here too.
Machine translation plus human edit. If you ran your novel through a machine translation or chatbot tool and then had a native speaker post-edit it, the translation was created by an AI tool. Under Amazon's wording that is an AI-generated translation, however good the edit.
Human translator using AI as a check. If a translator produced the translation and used AI tools to check terminology or catch errors, that most closely fits the AI-assisted wording, though Amazon's "edit, refine, error-check" sentence names only text and images.
Kindle Translate. Amazon now runs its own AI translation service for KDP authors. The Kindle Translate help page calls it "Amazon's new AI-powered translation service" and says it is an invite-only beta, free during the beta, with the same royalty options as your source eBook. Key details from Amazon's pages, checked November 8, 2026:
- Languages: the languages page lists English into French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish, plus each of those into English. Amazon's announcement, updated June 30, 2026, describes the same six-language expansion.
- Quality gate: translations become available only if they pass what Amazon calls a "7-step quality assurance threshold" covering fidelity, style and idioms (quality page). Failures get a "Cannot be published" status.
- No direct editing: the FAQ says "Direct editing of the translated text is not available at this time." You can preview before publishing.
- Labels for readers: Amazon's announcement says Kindle Translate titles "are clearly labeled in the Amazon Store," and the FAQ says readers see language labels and samples.
Amazon's pages don't say whether a Kindle Translate edition also needs the translation box ticked in title setup. Because Amazon made the translation with AI and labels it publicly anyway, our view is that answering "yes" for translation costs you nothing and keeps your records consistent.
AI-narrated audio: Virtual Voice and ACX
Audio sits outside the text, images and translations question, but it is where readers most often ask "was this AI?"
Virtual Voice on KDP. Amazon's Virtual Voice beta page describes it as an offering "that uses computer-generated speech technology," invite-only and free to create at this time. Per the getting-started page, you pick a voice and set a list price between $3.99 and $14.99. The eligibility page adds conditions, including a supported primary language (English, Spanish, Italian or French), no existing Audible audiobook, and no public-domain content. The beta terms, dated October 21, 2026, set a 40% royalty and state that "we retain ownership in the AVV Edition file."
Kindle+. Since October 2026, Kindle Unlimited is called Kindle+, and eligible audiobooks are included. KDP's Kindle+ page says Virtual Voice audiobooks are automatically enrolled in KDP Select when the matching eBook is, and can't be removed from it separately. If you want only the eBook in the subscription, you unpublish the Virtual Voice edition. That matters if you're weighing KU against going wide.
ACX is different. ACX's submission requirements say an audiobook "must be narrated by a human unless otherwise authorized" and that "Unauthorized use of text-to-speech, AI, or automated recordings in ACX titles is prohibited." Unless ACX has authorized it, don't upload synthetic narration there.
Reader preference is worth weighing. In Written Word Media's 2026 reader survey of 3,589 readers, more than 80% preferred human narrators and under 1% strongly preferred AI voices. That audience skews toward ebook deal readers, so treat it as a signal, not a census.
What to do before your next upload
- Inventory every image. List the cover, back cover, author photo, maps, ornaments, scene breaks and every interior illustration. Note who or what made each one.
- Get it in writing from designers. One email asking "Was any part of this art generated by AI, including stock elements?" settles most cover questions.
- Sort each item with the definitions. Created by AI means AI-generated, whatever editing followed. Created by a person and polished with AI means AI-assisted.
- Answer text, images and translations separately. A human-written novel with an AI cover is AI-generated in one category only.
- Re-check when you republish. Amazon's rule applies when you "make edits to and republish," so a cover refresh with generated art changes your answer.
- Keep the evidence. Layered files, sketches, invoices and licenses are what you can show if Amazon asks; its guidelines say it "may also request additional information relating to your book before it's available for sale."
If you're still drafting, the bigger risk lives in the text. Our explainer on AI-assisted vs AI-generated writing covers the manuscript side with the same definitions.