AI narration is creating disruption in audiobook publishing as platforms adopt voice cloning, reshape distribution models, and challenge the role of traditional voice actors. Featured article by Andreas Welsch.
Copyright: intelligencebriefing.substack.com – “How AI Is Accelerating Industry Disruption And Leadership”
If you follow the tech news, there’s no way around the claims of disruption: industries, jobs, tasks—everything is going to change massively. But most likely, it’s not the case in your own area of influence. Change seems to happen at a much slower pace than management consultants make it appear. But does it?
At the end of last year, I shared my experience creating the AI-narrated version of my book, AI Leadership Handbook. I had previously recorded about 45 minutes of myself reading blog posts to create a voice clone using an AI tool called ElevenLabs. My family and friends couldn’t tell the difference between my voice clone and my own voice. Yes, that’s how good the technology is. Since then, things have moved incredibly quickly in this space.
When Industry Heavyweights Move Quickly
The industry is moving incredibly fast and evolving from a human-only to an AI-embraced approach to narration. Just because progress seemed slow doesn’t mean that the pace can’t change in a short period of time and in your industry, too:
- December 2024: Rakuten Kobo was the only distributor to accept AI-narrated audiobooks created using AI tools outside the distributor’s platform, such as the author’s voice clone. Findaway Voices by Spotify allowed AI-generated narration using stock voices, and Amazon/ Audible had a close beta program using AI voices provided via their platform.
- January 2025: Audiobooks.com was the second platform to accept AI-narrated audiobooks using outside technology.
- February 2025: Findaway Voices by Spotify announced a partnership with ElevenLabs as part of which authors can create the audiobook using their own voice clone and distribute the AI-narrated audiobook via Spotify. The distribution includes additional platforms, including Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and audiobooks.com.
- March 2025: Amazon/ Audible expands its Virtual Voices beta program. Authors can now narrate their Kindle-based ebook using stock voices.
With every new platform opening up to AI-narrated books, I have added the AI Leadership Handbook for distribution there. As of the publication of this article, the audiobook is available on the following platforms (from least to most realistic narration):
- Amazon/ Audible — Stock voice
- Spotify/ Barnes & Noble — Andreas’s voice clone
- Audiobooks.com/ Kobo — Andreas’s voice clone + Matt’s voice clone for the forward
So, why care about Amazon’s approach? More on that in the next section(…)
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe to our AI NAVIGATOR!
Read more: www.intelligencebriefing.substack.com
AI narration is creating disruption in audiobook publishing as platforms adopt voice cloning, reshape distribution models, and challenge the role of traditional voice actors. Featured article by Andreas Welsch.
Copyright: intelligencebriefing.substack.com – “How AI Is Accelerating Industry Disruption And Leadership”
At the end of last year, I shared my experience creating the AI-narrated version of my book, AI Leadership Handbook. I had previously recorded about 45 minutes of myself reading blog posts to create a voice clone using an AI tool called ElevenLabs. My family and friends couldn’t tell the difference between my voice clone and my own voice. Yes, that’s how good the technology is. Since then, things have moved incredibly quickly in this space.
When Industry Heavyweights Move Quickly
The industry is moving incredibly fast and evolving from a human-only to an AI-embraced approach to narration. Just because progress seemed slow doesn’t mean that the pace can’t change in a short period of time and in your industry, too:
With every new platform opening up to AI-narrated books, I have added the AI Leadership Handbook for distribution there. As of the publication of this article, the audiobook is available on the following platforms (from least to most realistic narration):
So, why care about Amazon’s approach? More on that in the next section(…)
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe to our AI NAVIGATOR!
Read more: www.intelligencebriefing.substack.com
Share this: