Apple has begun using artificial intelligence to voice audiobooks on its Apple Books service. Digital voices are currently available in fiction, particularly romance novels, but the genre may expand in the future.
Apple describes the new digital storytelling feature on its website as making audiobook creation more accessible, reducing cost and complexity for authors and publishers. Two digital voices are reported to be used: Madison and Jackson (an additional two voices, Helena and Mitchell, will be voiced by non-fiction).
The service is currently only available in English.
If you search for AI Narrator in the Books app on iOS, you’ll find the romance series with the note “voiced by Apple Books” and the name of the AI narrator.
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FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
“This is an Apple Books audiobook voiced with a digital voice based on the voice of a real narrator,” reads the description of each audiobook that uses the company’s digital storytelling service.
The lists are a mix of paid and free audiobooks, and the AI voices sound good – perfectly clear and understandable, but artificial. Although this may improve with the development of voice AI technologies.
According to The Guardian, which first reported the new feature, Apple intended to launch it in November, but delayed the launch as Elon Musk’s chaotic acquisition of Twitter and layoffs at Meta dominated news headlines at the time. Apple has reportedly approached independent publishers about dubbing their books, offering to cover production costs.
Apple’s website states that publishers and authors retain the rights to audiobooks and can release other audio versions if they wish.
Apple’s approach to digital audio is the opposite of that of its rival Amazon: for example, the rules of online audiobook and podcast service Audible clearly state that submitted audiobooks “must be narrated by humans.” Notably, Amazon’s Kindle e-book used to offer a text-to-speech feature, but it was removed 10 years ago due to copyright infringement. According to a report by Wired, at least one AI audiobook appeared on Amazon’s service in the past, but it was removed.
Spotify has also invested in making audiobooks the third pillar of the streaming service alongside music and podcasts. But the audiobook service’s ambitions have mostly been in the news due to clashes with Apple and its “anti-competitive actions.”
Spotify accused Apple of “anti-competitive behavior” – the company prevented the service from selling audiobooks in the application
Source: The Verge
