Audible announced plans to use AI technology to narrate and translate audiobooks. The firm stated that its AI production technology will be available to certain publishers via “select partnerships”.

Audible AI

“We are bringing new audiobooks to life through our own fully integrated, end-to-end AI production technology,” read the announcement on Audible’s website.

Publishers wanting to utilize the new technology will have two options: “Audible-managed” production, or “self-service,” where publishers produce their own audiobooks using Audible’s AI technology.

Both options allow publishers to choose from more than 100 AI-generated voices in several languages, including English, French, Spanish, and Italian. The AI translation feature will reportedly be available later this year, but an option of using human professional linguists for translations will also be included.

“Audible believes that AI represents a momentous opportunity to expand the availability of audiobooks with the vision of offering customers every book in every language, alongside our continued investments in premium original content,” said Bob Carrigan, the chief executive of Audible.

Carrigan added: “We’ll be able to bring more stories to life – helping creators reach new audiences while ensuring listeners worldwide can access extraordinary books that might otherwise never reach their ears.”

Though the announcement may expand the availability of audiobooks and allow writers and publishers to reach new audiences, it has faced some criticism from voice actors, translators, and writers. Kristin Atherton, for example, who has narrated more than 400 audiobook titles on Audible, said human narrators “actively sell audio content by being good at their jobs.”

“The art – and it is an art – of a good audiobook is the crack in the voice at a moment of unexpected emotion, the wryness of good comedy timing, or the disbelief a listener feels when one person can convincingly be a whole cast of characters,” Atherton stated to The Guardian. “No matter how ‘human’ an AI voice sounds, it’s those little intricacies that turn a good book into an excellent one. AI can’t replicate that.”