- 2026/10/12
At Frankfurt Book Fair 2026, Marc Hispa, Partner AI Products at BearingPoint, took to the Innovation Stage to explore a question increasingly relevant for publishers: how can data and AI help improve profitability while reducing inefficiencies across the book lifecycle?
From deciding how many copies of a new title to print to anticipating sales and planning stock allocation, publishers make high-impact decisions long before actual demand is fully visible. At the Innovation Stage, DemandSens demonstrated how purpose-built AI can bring more data and foresight into those decisions.
From better forecasts to better publishing decisions
At the heart of the presentation was a simple idea: get the right books, in the right quantities, to the right bookstores and retail channels at the right time, without clogging warehouses.
DemandSens approaches this across the entire book lifecycle. Its use cases range from assessing manuscript potential and optimizing initial print runs to planning retail allocation, forecasting frontlist and backlist sales and supporting budget planning.
For print-run decisions, for example, DemandSens generates recommendations at ISBN level based on publishing data and comparable titles. Its forecasting capabilities can subsequently help publishers respond to early demand signals and monitor titles after launch.
The result is not AI for AI's sake. It is AI applied to concrete publishing decisions.
From dashboards to conversations with publishing data
The presentation also looked beyond traditional analytics with the DemandSens Conversational Agent.
Instead of limiting users to questions anticipated by a dashboard, the agent provides conversational access to market panels and publishers' internal data. Demand forecasts, print-run forecasts and comparable titles can be accessed through one interface, with answers linked back to their sources.
It represents an important shift: making complex publishing data easier to access and use in everyday decision-making.
From market data to measurable impact
The presentation also highlighted DemandSens' strategic partnership in Germany with Media Control, described in the pitch as Germany's sole market data provider. The partnership applies AI-driven forecasting to new releases, frontlist and backlist titles using German book market data.
This illustrates the broader opportunity discussed on the Innovation Stage: combining publisher data, market intelligence and purpose-built AI to create a stronger basis for decisions before and after publication.
Making AI useful for publishers
he message from Frankfurt was clear: adopting AI is not the end goal. Using it to solve real publishing challenges is.
Whether the question is how many copies to print, where to allocate stock, how a title might perform or what the available data is telling a team, AI has the potential to make those decisions more informed and more accessible.
That is where DemandSens is focused: turning publishing data into insights that help teams act with greater confidence.
See how DemandSens can improve publishing decisions. Book a personalized demo with our publishing experts.
