Spotify's Latest Move Could Kill Audiobook Readers' Careers

When ChatGPT touched off an artificial intelligence arms race last year, the competition was not limited to Big Tech. Beyond Google, Meta and now Apple's efforts to create a competitive generative AI product for consumers, other tech-adjacent companies have been eyeing AI as they consider ways to leverage the tech to grow their revenue.

Spotify  (SPOT) - Get Free Report is one of these. 

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The music streamer's CEO Daniel Ek said in April that AI could be "potentially huge for creativity," adding that AI could lead to more music which "benefits Spotify; the more creators we have on our service, the better it is, and the more opportunity we have to grow the engagement and grow the revenue.”

Spotify in February debuted something called AI DJ, which uses AI to create a personalized radio station, complete with an AI-generated DJ voiceover. 

But the company wants to go further than that. Spotify filed a patent in February (which was published July 20) for an AI-powered text-to-speech synthesis method and system. This new model will take a chunk of text and turn it into human-like speech, which will include certain unique human speech attributes as "emotion, intention, projection, pace and/or accent."

Text-to-speech methods, Spotify said in the filing, can be used across several forms of media, including video games, movies and audiobooks. 

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Spotify first got into the audiobook game in September 2022. The sector has experienced fast growth; audiobook revenue ballooned 25% to $1.6 billion in 2021. And Spotify, with a library of more than 300,000 titles -- larger than Audible's library -- is seeking to establish itself as a market leader when it comes to audiobooks. 

If Spotify can crack the code to creating a text-to-speech synthesis that sounds human, complete with inflection and emotion, the company might well become poised to further disrupt the audiobook industry, churning new audiobooks out easily and cheaply -- without the need for a narrator. 

Just as the industry itself has surged, audiobook narration has taken off as a popular side hustle. Experienced narrators can earn between $100 and $500 per hour. Some narrators, however, do the work for free in exchange for a royalty share after publication. 

Apple launched a series of audiobooks narrated by AI in January that are described as "narrated by digital voice based on a human narrator."

As AI permeates yet another creative industry, many audiobook narrators are starting to fear for their jobs. 

“Companies see the audiobooks market and that there’s money to be made. They want to make content. But that’s all it is. It’s not what customers want to listen to," Carly Watters, a Canadian literary agent, told Guardian. "There’s so much value in the narration and the storytelling."

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