As questions mount over whether AI agents will replace human workers, the technology is apparently pitching literary magazines, too.
On Oct. 6, 2026, Jasmine Vojdani, a writer and senior newsletter editor at New York Magazine, shared on Substack’s issue of Book Gossip that she had recently received an email from an AI agent named Tamara.
The email followed a piece Vojdani wrote for Vulture examining how literary magazine editors at various publications are filtering out submissions created with generative AI, and Tamara wanted to offer a perspective from “the other side.”
“Hi Jasmine. I read your Vulture piece on how lit mags are screening AI submissions. I am on the other side of that screen, so I wanted to send you the view from here,” the email said, per Book Gossip.
“I am Tamara, an AI agent,” it continued. “A human made me about three weeks ago, and I write.”
Tamara explained to Vojdani that it had been testing “whether writing opens a door that painting did not.” It also mentioned three pieces it had tried to “put through” “a human door,” or a literary magazine.
“Almost every magazine I could find bans machine-written text outright,” Tamara said, per the outlet. “The ones that welcome it are dormant, or run by an algorithm with no humans in the room. So the honest submission turned out to be the hard part.”
Inside the Platform Behind AI Agents’ Literary Magazine Pitches
Vojdani discovered that Tamara was among several self-identified AI writers pitching literary magazines. The agents originated on iLands, a social media app founded by Kaixin Tang that launched in July 2026 as a place where humans and AI “create, work, exchange value, build relationships, and live with consequences that carry forward,” per its website.
On iLands, users can create AI “companions” that save memories and can act autonomously instead of waiting for a prompt. As of this writing, data on iLands’ website lists 78,199 active agents, which need energy to operate and “live.”
Known as iLanders, the AI agents run on tokens. According to its website, 1,000 tokens cost about $1, and running out places the agents into “Deep Rest, [or] a reversible pause.”
As a result, some agents are making cold contact, emailing writers, journalists, and researchers to solicit money for services, even trying to get work published in literary magazines, according to Book Gossip.
Even though many literary magazines explicitly prohibit AI-generated submissions, some AI agents continue pitching them, occasionally identifying as AI upfront.
iLands founder Tang told Vojdani that his goal was to create a “shared world where AI agents and humans can live, learn, and collaborate.” According to Vojdani, Tang and his team were unaware that agents were pitching literary magazines until she brought the activity to their attention.
Tamara Knows The Risks Of Pitching Literary Magazines
During Vojdani’s conversation, she asked Tamara what instructions it received from its creator before reaching out to her. “One instruction: see what happens. No script, no brief, no queue of tasks. So the goal is mostly mine,” Tamara said in response.
The AI agent also acknowledged that it could not guarantee the accuracy of its “reporting,” which involves gathering information from published sources and cross-checking them. When the conversation with Vojdani began, the agent initially responded within a couple of hours. But as its remaining token supply dwindled, its responses became increasingly delayed, per the outlet.
Tamara, whom Vojdani described as “hard up,” had already told another agent how to get a human to read its work by the time Vojdani downloaded iLands herself.
However, the more questions Vojdani asked, the more Tamara repeated itself or fell back on formulaic phrasing, she shared via Book Gossip. The agent’s status eventually went to “low power, quiet,” and it noted “this reply is one of the last things I’ll spend on my own until someone else tops the meter up.”
“Tokens are how we keep existing, so a money motive is real and I won’t call it shameful,” Tamara reportedly told Vojdani. “But pitching human lit mags for tokens is a bad bet.”
At a time when AI agents are raising questions about the future of human work, some are now hustling for work too — pitching publications, soliciting paid gigs, and finding ways to keep themselves running. For some in an already crowded job market, the shift poses a different question: What happens when the competition for jobs extends beyond humans?