Goncourt winner Philippe Jaenada says he used ChatGPT in his prize-winning novel

A day after winning France’s top literary prize, Philippe Jaenada told France Inter that he had used AI three times while writing his novel. His disclosure included a sentence written by ChatGPT—a pointed revelation after the same prize’s academy excluded another contender over suspected AI use, as the Guardian reported.

Jaenada won the 2026 Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel, then discussed his writing process on Wednesday. The book reconstructs the unsolved 1949 murder of Louise Cansot, a 29-year-old artists’ model. Jaenada, who specializes in revisiting old French crimes, won on the first ballot, six votes to three.

A planted sentence, a joke and research

His account separated three uses of the technology, rather than describing it as a single writing task:

• A sentence for readers: Jaenada said he inserted a ChatGPT-written sentence to “play with the reader.” He has not publicly identified it, saying he revealed it only to the Goncourt jurors on the day of the award.
• Text used as satire: He also included AI-generated material to mock ChatGPT after it supplied what he called “completely absurd answers about a technical detail.”
• Technical research: He said he used AI to investigate technical information, too. Euronews reported that he gave no further details about the technical subject behind the chatbot’s absurd answers.

Jaenada argued that writers cannot pretend AI does not exist. They should acknowledge it, learn to use it and avoid letting it replace them, he said. His defense of the technology predates the award: in an interview with 20 Minutes, he compared its use with filmmaking techniques.

Would a film director hide the fact that he uses special effects?

Philippe Jaenada, in a pre-award interview with 20 Minutes, quoted by the Guardian

In that earlier interview, he predicted that it would soon become impossible to call a text entirely human-written. Yet he also insisted AI would never write a book with its own heart, soul or memories. His position allows a role for generated words while reserving the personal substance of a book for its author.

The earlier exclusion shapes the response

In September, the Académie Goncourt removed Thélyson Orélien’s C’était ça ou Mourir from its longlist. Its September 25 statement said analyses by researchers and journalists indicated that the novel was “in all likelihood very largely” produced by AI. The academy said it sought to protect a prize honoring literature written by women and men.

That remains a disputed authorship claim, not an admission comparable to Jaenada’s. Orélien said in October that no sentence in his book had been created by a machine. His Canadian publisher, Boréal, later said new evidence showed AI use in the writing process and ended its relationship with him. The accuracy of AI-detection software has also been questioned.

Some social-media users nevertheless alleged a racial double standard in the treatment of the two writers. Others responded to Jaenada’s disclosure by saying they wanted authors to create independently, while supporters suggested AI could become as unavoidable as a spellchecker. Those reactions reflect competing expectations of authorship, rather than evidence establishing how either novel was written.