Between 30 and 50 readers within each target market for that genre were polled. Although the results appear to be clearly in favor of covers that include generative AI, that’s not the most interesting outcome of these polls. Readers don’t appear to care whether generative AI was used at all. Across all of the polls, the comments focused almost entirely on genre fit, visual appeal, and reader expectations. The method used to create the cover was largely irrelevant to the people choosing between them. In other words, if the use of generative AI were a significant factor in readers’ decision-making, you would expect to see it reflected in either the results or the comments. It's not.