Audible is expanding its AI-narrated audiobook library 

Audible, Amazon’s audiobook service, announced connected Tuesday that it’s partnering with prime publishers to person people and e-books into AI-narrated audiobooks. This inaugural aims to rapidly grow its catalog arsenic it competes with Apple, Spotify, and others successful the rapidly increasing audiobook market.

Audible is leveraging Amazon’s AI capabilities to assistance publishers successful producing audiobooks. Publishers tin take from implicit 100 AI-generated voices disposable successful English, French, Spanish, and Italian, with aggregate accents and dialect options. The institution plans to grow these options implicit time.

Additionally, Audible plans to rotation retired a beta mentation of AI translation aboriginal this year, offering some text-to-text and speech-to-speech translation services. This volition enactment translations from English to Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Publishers volition besides person the enactment to get assistance from “professional linguists” to reappraisal these translations for accuracy, according to the company.

In 2023, Amazon introduced an invite-only beta virtual dependable instrumentality for self-published authors successful the U.S., enabling them to person their e-books into audiobooks utilizing synthetic code tech. Last year, Audible invited a cohort of audiobook narrators to bid AI connected their voices.

A hunt for “virtual voice” connected Audible reveals implicit 50,000 titles labeled “Narrated By: Virtual Voice,” indicating that the tech is fashionable among authors who whitethorn not person the resources to nutrient their ain audiobooks. 

Despite its wide adoption, the instauration of AI-generated narrations has prompted statement wrong the publishing assemblage and among listeners. Critics explicit concerns that these AI recordings mightiness compromise the wide prime of audiobooks. 

Spotify, the second-largest audiobook supplier aft Audible, has besides precocious made efforts to grow its audiobook room by utilizing AI narration tools. The level partnered with the AI audio supplier ElevenLabs successful February.