The academy’s president, novelist Philippe Claudel, said the proposal will follow a recent AI‑detector scan of the eight books in this year’s second selection, all of which cleared the test.
Currently, the Goncourt rules require entries to be written in French and published by a francophone house with bookstore distribution, but they do not address AI usage.
The debate intensified after the Canadian‑Haitian author Thélson Orélien’s novel C’était ça ou mourir was removed from the first selection on 25 September amid accusations that AI had been used in its creation.
Orélien denied the claims, which were sparked by a X/Twitter post sharing results from the Pangram detector that flagged certain passages as likely AI‑generated. The controversy also involved plagiarism allegations.
Experts cautioned that AI detectors identify linguistic patterns but do not provide definitive proof of authorship, especially when AI tools are used for editing, translation or assistance rather than full‑text generation.
After the uproar, the academy ran Pangram 4 on the second‑selection titles; all remain in competition as the field narrows to four finalists, with the winner to be announced on 4 November.
The move reflects broader industry concerns about preserving human authorship while defining acceptable use of new digital tools.