Award-Winning AI Literature

This is a list of literary awards granted to works where AI was used (or was suspected) as part of the writing process. There are 30 cases categorized as follows: 4 confirmed AI use, 12 where AI was allowed from the start, 2 where organizers said AI was used, 6 suspected or disputed, 3 nominations and shortlists withdrawn, and 3 near-misses and eligibility cases.

CONFIRMED AI USE

• NOVEL: Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Kudan — 170th Akutagawa Prize, 2024 Kudan initially estimated that about 5% of the novel involved ChatGPT, but later stated it was roughly one page out of 143. She used the AI's output specifically for replies written by an AI character within the novel, and the prize was maintained.
• SHORT STORY: The Land of Machine Memories by Shen Yang, writing as “QuartZen” — 5th Youth Popular Science and Science Fiction Competition, Second Prize, 2023 AI was used to generate the title, prose, illustrations, and pen name over 66 rounds of prompting. The experiment was hidden from the judges by the organizer; while often cited as a national prize, it was a broad association contest where 90 out of approximately 200 entries received awards.
• WEB NOVEL: Modest Skill “Tidying Up” Is the Strongest! — 18th AlphaPolis Fantasy Novel Awards, Grand Prize and Reader’s Choice, 2025 The author admitted that a large majority of the web novel was created using generative AI. Following this, AlphaPolis canceled the print and manga adaptations and updated its rules, though the award labels themselves were not formally revoked.
• MEMOIR: How to Win One Million Dollars and $#!T Glitter! by Luke Stoffel — IBPA Book Award, Benjamin Franklin Silver Medal for Neurodivergent Communities, 2026 Stoffel disclosed his use of ChatGPT for grammar and structural scaffolding in both the book and the award submission. Because IBPA guidelines did not prohibit AI assistance, the book received the Silver Medal.

AI WAS ALLOWED FROM THE START

• SHORT STORY: Are You There? by Kamome Ashizawa — 9th Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, Excellence Award, 2022 Ashizawa used AI to create 101 stories in three weeks, though the winning entry was mostly written personally with minor AI assistance. This marked the first AI-assisted story to win a Hoshi prize.
• SHORT STORY: The Last Painter by Toh Katagiri — 12th Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, Excellence Award, 2025 Organizers classified this as AI-assisted, though Katagiri reportedly told fellow finalists that every sentence was written personally.
• SHORT STORY: Genome Tower by Shamizui — 13th Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, Grand Prix, 2026 The disclosed AI use was minimal, apparently limited to inventing the name of a fictional disease, yet organizers still categorized it as an AI-assisted winner.
• SHORT STORY: Parallel Self-Mediation Co., Ltd. by En Shijima — 13th Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, Excellence Award, 2026 Shijima described the collaboration as feeling more like “choosing” than “writing,” suggesting a more generative process.
• SHORT STORY: Erinnerung by Rino Takinouchi — 13th Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, Excellence Award, 2026 This work involved extensive rewriting of ChatGPT prose, with the author correcting logic, pronouns, and dated phrases while adding original scientific material.
• ARTIST BOOKS: The Library of Nonhuman Books by Karen Ann Donnachie and Andy Simionato — Robert Coover Award, First Place, 2020 An AI system used computer vision and language processing to curate poetic combinations from physical books. One volume, Perception, also won Australia’s Cornish Family Prize.
• POETRY COLLECTION: Výsledky vzniku by Liza Gennart — Zlatá vlna, 2021 This collection, which won a prize for the best original Slovak poetry book, consisted of poems generated by GPT-2 trained on Slovak works and curated by humans.
• POETRY SERIES: ReRites by David Jhave Johnston — Electronic Literature Organization Robert Coover Award, 2022 The project consists of twelve books built from neural-network output that was selected and edited by the author.
• CHAPBOOK: A Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram — DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press Chapbook Contest, Winner, 2023 Bertram used GPT-3 and a specialized model trained on Gwendolyn Brooks to generate machine responses for three sections of the book.
• SHORT STORY: Stargazers by Ruei-Jie Chang — UCSB Mind & Machine Intelligence Writing Contest, First Prize, 2024 Chang used ChatGPT for the initial seed and Claude for organization and translation before final revisions.
• SHORT STORY: 30–70 by Yana Vagner — Valentin Kataev Literary Prize, Winner, 2025 Vagner collaborated with Yandex’s AI assistant, Alice, for recurring climate reports within the story.
• GENERATIVE POEM: WORDS BEYOND WORDS by Sasha Stiles — Lumen Prize Literature & Poetry Award, 2025 The award was granted to a fine-tuned language model that generates a new poem each time the work is refreshed.

ORGANIZERS SAID AI WAS USED

• POEMS: Migrant Writers of Singapore poetry competition — Migrant Literature Festival, 2024 Organizers recalled the entire winners list after identifying three AI-generated entries using detection tools like Scribbr and QuillBot.
• POEMS: Poetry.com November and December contests — Two Monthly First Prizes, 2024 The site redistributed prizes after determining the original winners were created with AI assistance; the accused writers are no longer identified on the results pages.

SUSPECTED OR DISPUTED

• SHORT STORY: The Serpent in the Grove by Jamir Nazir — Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Overall Winner, 2026 Despite a detector labeling it 100% AI-generated, the Foundation accepted Nazir’s evidence of using speech-to-text software due to a medical condition and allowed him to keep the award.
• SHORT STORY: The Bastion’s Shadow by John Edward DeMicoli — Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Canada and Europe Winner, 2026 DeMicoli successfully disputed a 100% AI flag by producing handwritten drafts and research notes.
• SHORT STORY: Mehendi Nights by Sharon Aruparayil — Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Asia Winner, 2026 Aruparayil maintained her award after demonstrating how minor changes to local dialect words significantly altered detector results.
• SHORT STORY: Descend by Chanel Sutherland — Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Overall Winner, 2025 A detector labeled this story 88% AI a year after it won; Sutherland denied the claim, attributing the style to Vincentian oral storytelling.
• SHORT STORY: Back and Forth by Kavyta Kay — Harper’s Bazaar UK Short Story Competition, Winner, 2026 A 100% AI detector result for this story circulated online, though no formal investigation or revocation has been confirmed.
• POEM + UNKNOWN: Peter Doolan and an unnamed winner — Plaza Prizes, 2025 Both winners were disqualified based on detector flags, despite denials and Doolan’s claim that his poem was originally published in 2018.

NOMINATIONS AND SHORTLISTS WITHDRAWN

• COMICS ANTHOLOGY: Stardust the Super Wizard Anthology — Eisner Award for Best Anthology, Nominee, 2026 The anthology was withdrawn after it was discovered one page featured an AI-generated comic by a fictitious creator.
• ILLUSTRATED EDITION: Frankenstein, Clube de Literatura Clássica edition — Prêmio Jabuti Illustration Category, Finalist, 2023 The book was disqualified because it was fully AI-illustrated using Midjourney, which violated rules that had not previously considered generative art.
• ILLUSTRATED BOOK: Unnamed illustrated title — Ink Book Prize, Shortlisted, 2026 A title was removed from the shortlist following complaints regarding AI use in its illustrations.

NEAR-MISSES AND ELIGIBILITY CASES

• NOVELLAS + STORIES: Angel Train and Obligate Carnivore — Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, 2026 These books were briefly barred because of AI-generated covers, but were reinstated because the rule against them was implemented too late.
• SHORT STORY: Cage of Algorithms by Keiji Aono — 12th Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, Finalist, 2025 This story, which was 80% AI-generated, reached the final ten entries but did not win.
• SHORT STORY: The Day a Computer Writes a Novel — 3rd Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award, First Round, 2016 In this pre-LLM precursor, software assembled prose from human-supplied components; it passed the first screening under rules that explicitly allowed nonhuman entrants.