As promised, Apple has launched Apple Books digital narration, which allows publishers to automatically generate high-quality AI-narrated audio from written text.
Apple first announced the feature in December. The feature allows Apple Books publishers to opt-in to have their written books converted into a narrated audio form using Artificial Intelligence. Samples of the voices developed specifically for the feature are available on the webpage.
As noted by The Guardian, the first AI-narrated audiobooks are now available in Apple Books, highlighted by the tag “Narrated by Apple Books.”
Empowering indie authors and small publishers
More and more book lovers are listening to audiobooks, yet only a fraction of books are converted to audio — leaving millions of titles unheard. Many authors — especially independent authors and those associated with small publishers — aren’t able to create audiobooks due to the cost and complexity of production. Apple Books digital narration makes the creation of audiobooks more accessible to all, helping you meet the growing demand by making more books available for listeners to enjoy.
Digital narration technology
Apple Books digital narration brings together advanced speech synthesis technology with important work by teams of linguists, quality control specialists, and audio engineers to produce high-quality audiobooks from an ebook file. Apple has long been on the forefront of innovative speech technology, and has now adapted it for long-form reading, working alongside publishers, authors, and narrators. For information on how you can take advantage of this new technology, see the How to get started section below.
Digitally narrated titles are a valuable complement to professionally narrated audiobooks, and will help bring audio to as many books and as many people as possible. Apple Books remains committed to celebrating and showcasing the magic of human narration and will continue to grow the human-narrated audiobook catalog.
Voices
Our digital voices are created and optimized for specific genres. We’re starting with fiction and romance, and are accepting ebook submissions in these genres. Hear samples of voices available for these genres below, or check out the full books in our audiobooks store.
Apple is offering different AI voices for different genres and the feature is currently only available for some genres, but Apple plans to add more in the future.
(Via MacRumors)