Audible is expanding its AI-narrated audiobook library  | TechCrunch

Audible, Amazon’s audiobook service, announced on Tuesday that it’s partnering with select publishers to convert print and e-books into AI-narrated audiobooks. This initiative aims to quickly expand its catalog as it competes with Apple, Spotify, and others in the rapidly growing audiobook market.

Audible is leveraging Amazon’s AI capabilities to assist publishers in producing audiobooks. Publishers can choose from over 100 AI-generated voices available in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, with multiple accents and dialect options. The company plans to expand these options over time.

Additionally, Audible plans to roll out a beta version of AI translation later this year, offering both text-to-text and speech-to-speech translation services. This will support translations from English to Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Publishers will also have the option to get help from “professional linguists” to review these translations for accuracy, according to the company.

In 2023, Amazon introduced an invite-only beta virtual voice tool for self-published authors in the U.S., enabling them to convert their e-books into audiobooks using synthetic speech tech. Last year, Audible invited a cohort of audiobook narrators to train AI on their voices.

A search for “virtual voice” on Audible reveals over 50,000 titles labeled “Narrated By: Virtual Voice,” indicating that the tech is popular among authors who may not have the resources to produce their own audiobooks. 

Despite its widespread adoption, the introduction of AI-generated narrations has prompted debate within the publishing community and among listeners. Critics express concerns that these AI recordings might compromise the overall quality of audiobooks. 

Spotify, the second-largest audiobook provider after Audible, has also recently made efforts to expand its audiobook library by utilizing AI narration tools. The platform partnered with the AI audio provider ElevenLabs in February.