Audible is leveraging Amazon’s AI capabilities to assist publishers in producing audiobooks. Publishers can choose from over 100 AI-generated voices available in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, with multiple accents and dialect options. The company plans to expand these options over time.

Additionally, Audible plans to roll out a beta version of AI translation later this year, offering both text-to-text and speech-to-speech translation services. This will support translations from English to Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Publishers will also have the option to get help from “professional linguists” to review these translations for accuracy, according to the company.

In 2023, Amazon introduced an invite-only beta virtual voice tool for self-published authors in the U.S., enabling them to convert their e-books into audiobooks using synthetic speech tech. Last year, Audible invited a cohort of audiobook narrators to train AI on their voices.

A search for “virtual voice” on Audible reveals over 50,000 titles labeled “Narrated By: Virtual Voice,” indicating that the tech is popular among authors who may not have the resources to produce their own audiobooks.