AI for Audiobooks
AI for audiobooks works really well. It’s not perfect, but it works. Authors and publishers are now routinely using AI tools in audiobook production, primarily for books where full-scale narrator-focused audiobook production is not financially feasible. And not only for English-language audiobooks, but also audiobooks in translation.
Using AI for audiobooks is not new; I first reported on the trend in Publishers Weekly in 2021. But the latest AI technology has reinvigorated the opportunity for automated audiobook narration.
Back in 2021 I noted “Is it perfect? Certainly not. Can it be good enough? Probably, if a publisher is willing to spend the necessary time in the voice editing phase of the project.” Four years later, by many accounts, AI-voices are undetectable from human voices, unless you’re listening very closely.
Last November Meta (Facebook) introduced “Seamless,” which is able to “transfer tones, emotional expression, and vocal style qualities” into the translation of 200 languages. An audiobook can be immediately translated into multiple languages with extraordinary quality.
Also in 2021 I reported that “Audible’s block on the distribution of audiobooks with non-human narrators is a real problem that may take some time to resolve.” In the meantime, both Google and Apple announced programs to allow authors to create audiobooks with AI-generated voices. On December 5, 2023, Findaway Voices by Spotify began accepting “digital voice narrated audiobooks from Google Play Books for distribution to select retail partners.”
In early November 2023 Amazon announced that Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) authors would soon have access to a service, “Virtual Voice,” that would allow them to “quickly and easily produce an audiobook version of their ebook using virtual voice narration, a synthetic speech technology.” In January 2024, Jane Friedman reported (paywall) “Audible quietly started allowing AI-narrated audiobooks to enter its storefront late last fall, long after other retailers had done the same.”
Then, on May 13, 2025, Audible announced that it would be “bringing new audiobooks to life through our own fully integrated, end-to-end AI production technology.” Publishers Weekly, covering the announcement, suggested that Audible’s competitors, like Spotify and Storytel, had forced the action.
Alongside the audio AI announcement was a nod to AI translation, that it will “begin rolling out… in beta later in 2025, allowing select publishers to bring their audiobooks to international audiences in their local languages. We’re developing support for translations from English to Spanish, French, Italian and German, which we’ll begin to roll out throughout this year.”
These endorsements change the playing field. They are creating opportunities for authors and their licensees to earn more money. That’s impossible to ignore.