Speed can be an issue for AI too, since the pace of a narration will vary in accordance with what is happening in the content of what's being read. "What humans can do best that AI can't is timing," Ciccarelli said, "be it the awkward pause or a hilarious sense of comedic timing, it's difficult for an AI voice to get this right out-of-the-box." Voicing is, after all, acting, and the art of it is difficult to replicate. Getting AI voice to not only sound human but connect with listeners isn't so easy to do. "Nearly 60% of listeners ditched an audiobook because they didn't enjoy the narrator … people like listening to other people, especially when stories are told," Ciccarelli said. The quality of the narration is a significant issue as well, as it hinges largely on the listener's sense of connection with the voice. And he added, "Because most people listen to audiobooks with earbuds, there is an even greater sense of intimacy." While your eye can discern movement at 24 frames per second, the ear can do so at a fidelity of 20,000 times per second.
"People are highly sensitive to sound," said David Ciccarelli, CEO of Voices, the largest voiceover marketplace. And that may present a limit case for how far consumers (and companies) can or will go – at least for now – in swapping out human narrators for computer-generated voices. It's not like asking Alexa for the weather or to play a song.
But AI voice use in audiobooks brings up what may be fairly described as a particularly intimate form of use for the new technology. They are second only to music as the most commonly consumed audio product. "Publishers can assess audiobook demand for their titles before making an investment in human narration," she said. Paying for voice actors is part of the cost equation. "For many publishers, audiobook production can be a major investment," said Judy Chang, director of product management for Google Play Books. None are created without publisher consent, nor is it something that any consumer could legally create on their own. Google Play offers publishers the ability to create auto-narrated audiobooks as long as publishers own the audiobook's rights and choose auto-narration. Are consumers ready to have AI whispering into their ears? The truth is, it's already happening.Īlphabet 's Google Play and Apple Books utilize AI-generated voices to some extent, and the trend is likely to continue. It also makes audiobooks one more market for AI to attempt to infiltrate, with AI-generated voices stepping in to take the mic from voice actors. That makes audiobooks "the fastest-growing book format in the world by a wide margin," according to Wordsrated. According to a forecast from Wordsrated, a publishing industry research organization, audiobook sector sales can be currently estimated at over $5 billion – near $2 billion from the U.S., the world's largest audiobook market – and revenue is expected to grow 26.4% every year from 2022 to 2030, leading audiobook sales to be north of $35 billion by 2030. The industry has had a decade of double-digit growth, a trend expected to accelerate. Since the iPhone era began, audiobooks have steadily grown. But it wasn't until they were absorbed into our phones that the medium really took off. It wasn't until the 1970s that books on tape began to soothe the anxiety of commuters. The concept of talking books began in the 1930s and existed for use by the visually impaired. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or LowerĪudiobooks – "talking books" as they were first known – are a fairly recent phenomenon, but they go back much further than Apple and Amazon. Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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