Voice narrators could make money by recording their voice to become AI. “It’s scary because it’s my living,” she said of the AI threat. ![]() She records two to three books each month for Audible and other companies, and she estimates 90 percent of her income stems from audiobook narration. Voice actors have been talking about AI for years, said Elisabeth Rodgers, who has been working as a voice actress since 2006. For the next five to 10 years, established professionals will be able to find work, but it will be more difficult for those looking to break into the industry, Chicoine said. It is cheaper, faster and more accessible than human narrators, so the technology has the potential to eat a share of available jobs. AI narration is both a threat and an opportunityįor voice actors and other audio industry workers, “AI is the elephant in the room,” Chicoine said. In 2021, audiobook sales totaled $1.6 billion, up from $1.3 billion the year prior. Totals for 2022 haven’t been released yet, but revenues show a similar upward trend. In 2021, 74,000 audiobooks were published, up 4 percent from 2020 and up 21 percent from 2010. The current audiobook market is worth $5.36 billion, and it is expected to reach $35 billion by 2030, according to a report by Research and Markets, a market data collector. But as the technology advances and becomes more human-sounding, experts say it will take away opportunities from voice actors. A voice actor can bring emotion and subtext that technology can’t, as well as unexpected pronunciation choices that give an audiobook a personality. It sounds human-like, but it still lacks the rhythm, pace and inflection unique to human narration, said Chicoine. The AI narration is produced by voice actors recording 50,000 to 100,000 individual words that are assembled into sentences by AI-powered software. Voice actors typically charge more than $1,000-and sometimes much more-to narrate a book, while AI narration costs $50 to $100 total, Chicoine said. ![]() While audiobook listeners may appreciate more selections and lower prices, voice robots threaten the actors who have traditionally voiced audiobooks. It won’t be able to compete with the cheap narration publishers can get by using Apple’s technology. While Amazon owns an AI voice-over service, which narrates the Washington Post’s articles, it currently doesn’t allow non-human narration on Audible. Apple does not disclose how much it charges, and the company did not respond to the Observer’s request for an interview.Īudible, Amazon’s audiobook service, “is by far the biggest audiobook narration entity in existence, and so Apple is really going head to head with Amazon on this,” said Miles Chicoine, founder and CEO of Voquent, a voice-over service that connects voice narrators with audiobook clients. Human narrators are expensive, so the technology will make audiobook production more accessible to independent and indie publishers, according to Apple’s website.
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