Audiobooks narrated by AI are all of the rage since they save publishers and authors time and money when creating low-quality garbage. The latest company to hop on the train is Spotify Audiobooks. Today, Spotify will begin accepting audiobooks from the AI software company ElevenLabs. Authors can use the ElevenLabs platform to narrate their audiobooks in 29 languages, with complete control over voice and intonation.
Spotify says “This was a highly requested feature from authors and publishers, and means that authors who use ElevenLabs to narrate their audiobooks can now distribute their content to Spotify and select other retailers via Findaway Voices, opening up access of their titles to millions of listeners and book fans.”
In the past few years, AI audiobooks have flooded the market, on all significant audiobook platforms. Audible unveiled “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.” 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.
Audible told Good e-Reader in a statement that ” Professional narration has always been, and will remain, core to the Audible listening experience. However, as text-to-speech technology improves, we see a future in which human performances and text-to-speech-generated content coexist.”
Early this year, Apple announced it was moving into AI-narrated audio books, which it said would make the “creation of audio books more accessible to all,” notably independent authors and small publishers. In 2022, Google Audiobooks unveiled their own AI tools for publishers and authors to spam out audiobooks. Google Judy Chang, group product manager for Google Play Books, pointed out some reasons behind the drive to offer auto-narration capability. “Audiobook production can be a major investment for many publishers,” she said. “That’s why Google Play Books’ auto-narrated audiobooks are designed to help publishers create high-quality audiobooks easily and affordably. Publishers can also assess audiobook demand for titles before investing in human narration.”
Compared to a human recording, AI audiobooks lack emotional connectivity.
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.
