AI audiobooks have flooded Audible since the company announced a beta tool last year. It allowed authors to forgo paying authentic narrators and publish audiobooks using the “virtual voice.” Since the platform went live, over 40,000 AI-narrated titles have flooded Audible. This was just the beginning. Audible plans to get human narrators who will volunteer to create speech models that will be synthesized to develop audiobooks faster. Audible noted in a blog post that it invited them to participate in a beta trial of the program that allows them to monetize their voices to create audiobooks using “AI-generated speech technology.”
Audible says both the narrators and authors will have control over which projects their AI voices are used for. The final narration will be reviewed as part of ACX’s production process to check for mispronunciations or other errors. Right now the Audible program is limited, with a select group of narrators participating. But it’s easy to see where this could go from here, and soon Audible could be opened up to let any author capable of generating an AI voice that can read their own book. Audible also proclaimed that each audiobook that uses an AI-generated voice will be marked, ensuring transparency for listeners.
However, introducing AI voices has also sparked concerns among human narrators. Many fear that the widespread use of AI in audiobook narration could reduce opportunities for human talent. After all, the efficiency and speed of AI production could entice publishers and authors to opt for AI narrators over their human counterparts.
Audiobooks are the fastest-growing segment of digital publishing. In 2023, revenue grew 9% and generated over $2 billion. The Audiobook Publishers Association proclaimed that 52% of U.S. adults, or nearly 149 million Americans, have listened to an audiobook. The survey also found that 38% of American adults listened to an audiobook in the last year, up from 35% reported in 2023. The survey found that subscriptions to audiobook services among consumers continue to grow, with 63% of those who listened in the last year currently subscribing to at least one service, up a tad from 62% in 2023. Additionally, 46% of current audiobook consumers reported borrowing a digital audiobook from a library in the last year.
Traditionally, significant publishers will have in-house audiobook studios with sound engineers and metadata specialists. They will hire narrators they have dealt with before or facilitate the hiring of actors and household names. Smaller publishers and independent authors will likely turn to the Audible Creation Exchange, which enables authors with narrators who can also do sniggering. Generally, beginning narrators on ACX get a lower rate – $10 to $100 per finished hour – and experienced narrators may get between $100 and $500. The average book will cost a couple of thousand dollars to produce, whereas they can utilize AI for free and spam out all of their back catalogue and new titles.
AI is improving now, but it will never beat a human narrator. I like it when the book writer narrates all of their books, such as Neil Gaiman. Wil Wheaton narrates Ernest Cline’s books and dittos them with Andy Weir. Some people who love Harry Potter like the narration by Steven Fry, who is British, instead of the American Jim Dale. Sure, AI is cheaper for indie author garbage nobody will ever listen to, but it needs a human for good books.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
