Today, Audible announced it would begin offering AI-powered narration to select publishers. AI translation services will launch in beta later this year.
“Audible believes that AI represents a momentous opportunity to expand the availability of audiobooks with the vision of offering customers every book in every language, alongside our continued investments in premium original content,” Audible CEO Bob Carrigan said.
Audible’s goal is for AI to help expand the existing catalog of content available in audio. “When you look at the audiobook format, it’s roughly—depending on what metric you look at—somewhere between two and five percent of all books that are available,” Carrigan told PW.
Audible is offering publishers two production options. The first is an end-to-end managed service where Audible handles the entire audiobook production process, start to finish. “From soup to nuts, from getting their manuscript all the way through to sale in our store,” Carrigan explained.
The second option is a self-service path that allows publishers to use Audible’s technology while maintaining control over their own production process. Both options provide access to more than 100 AI-generated voices across English, Spanish, French, and Italian, with multiple accents and dialects.
Publishers also have the option to choose either exclusive or non-exclusive distribution for their AI-produced titles.
This is not the Audible’s first AI project: currently, the company operates an invite-only beta with Amazon’s KDP, allowing independent authors to create audiobooks with AI voices. “Within the KDP environment, they can have access to about 100 voices,” Carrigan said. “In very few steps they are able to create an audiobook that then becomes available automatically through Audible.”
In addition to narration, Audible will begin rolling out AI translation services in beta in 2025. Carrigan noted that the company plans to support “both speech-to-speech and text-to-text translation” from English to Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Speech-to-speech translation will preserve original narrators’ voices across languages, while text-to-text translation will convert manuscripts before applying either professional or AI narration.
Publishers will be able to review translations using Audible’s text editor and have the option to request human review from professional linguists for accuracy and cultural nuance.
Maintaining market dominance
Audible is not the only audiobook company deploying AI. In April, Spotify partnered with ElevenLabs to offer automated AI conversion to self-published authors for audiobooks. Meanwhile, Sweden’s Storytel has implemented “voice switcher” technology, which enables you to change narrators mid-book, and has experimented with developing exclusively AI-produced books.
Facing these competitors, Carrigan emphasized Audible’s role as an audiobook pioneer. “We’ve been in business for nearly 30 years. We have deep relationships in the publishing community,” he said, noting the company maintains offices in 17 countries and serves customers in more than 180 territories. “When we went into some markets, we did it at a time when they didn’t even have a word for audiobook.”
Carrigan noted one other significant advantage: that Audible is developing this new program “in conjunction with Amazon’s experts in AI-generated voice technology.”
Audible’s competitive strategy also extends to championing original—and exclusive—content. This includes projects such as new full-cast recordings of the Harry Potter series, which are currently in production and feature nearly 200 actors, as well as 2025 Webby Award–winning projects like Ready, Set, Ride with Elmo, produced with Sesame Street, and George Orwell’s 1984, starring Andrew Garfield.
“For us, it’s really about that great listening experience and understanding what is going to be amazing for customers,” Carrigan said.
Looking ahead, Carrigan said the company sees particular potential in educational content, with teachers representing some of its most loyal customers. “Who are we to say that textbooks shouldn’t happen in audio format?” Carrigan said, citing the technology’s potential to support accessibility and learning.
“If it took close to 30 years to get to, say, a million titles, the opportunity to grow this category into a much larger offering for customers and creators with the expansion into more languages—that too is just a great opportunity,” Carrigan said.