Business
Did you know there are over 47 million books listed on Amazon, but only 300,000 of them are listed on Audible? More audiobooks means more accessibility for blind and disabled people. Anne and special guest Ali Zia Khan, founder of Scribe Audio, talk about how AI is transforming the audiobook industry in this episode in the AI & Voice series. Scribe Audio is using AI and working voice actors to expand the audiobook market. According to Ali, human voices aren’t going anywhere! Listen to this episode to learn more about how you can use new technology to create passive income. Make AI work for you! About Ali Zia Khan: Ali the CEO of Scribe Audio and an ML engineer who's worked with computer vision and AI for the healthcare, retail, banking, and taxi domains, including helping Fortune 500 companies solve their problems with cutting-edge tech. Drawing upon his in-depth ML knowledge and passion for teaching, Ali has successfully trained 500+ people in data science and AI. Takeaways Scribe Audio is aiming to make millions of new books available to consumers in audio format by using AI voices This model was designed to cut the cost of audiobook production A good audiobook takes approximately $6000 and 6 to 8 weeks to produce Less than 1% of books are available in audiobook format Scribe Audio’s AI format can mimic a human emotional range Scribe takes audio and synthesizes an AI voice, and then a QC team (who act as “proofers”) code the audiobook for emotion and adjust the AI accordingly Scribe Audio partners with voice actors, models their voices, and then compensates the actor for each book produced using their AI voice It takes 30 to 40 days to model each voice actor’s voice To create a voice, narrators first narrate an audiobook and then record prompts with various emotional ranges Scribe has over 50 voices and plans to expand to over 100 voices Voice actors can use a pseudonym when they record for the platform After a voice actor’s voice is modeled, they do not have any involvement The president of the Audio Publishers Association sits on the advisory board for Scribe Audio Scribe is in talks with SAG - AFTRA to figure out how union work will be incorporated and impacted For the foreseeable future, AI will only expand the audiobook market. It will not replace traditional audiobook narrators Publishers will likely still use human voice actors for popular titles Voice actors will still be needed to bring a human touch to these popular books Referenced in this episode Visit Scribe Audio's Website Learn more about the Audio Publisher's Association Recorded on ipDTL