I'm a voiceover talent and podcast producer--I'm constantly surrounded by different forms of media that promise to make my job easier, my productions higher-quality, and my audience more impressed.
The new kid on the block? Artificial intelligence. It can do the art. It can do the writing. Oh--and it can do voices too.
AI has producers like myself anxiously twiddling our thumbs. Some of us are scared our jobs are at stake--others are hopeful their jobs just got easier. And, if you're like me, you're caught somewhere in the middle, asking the question, "How do I take advantage of AI without contributing to my own extinction?"
For me, it was experiment time. I decided to use and AI voice in an up-and-coming podcast episode: here's what I learned.
I walked the AI path because I needed a voice actor--and, being one myself, I knew a professional actor was out of the budget for this particular project.
This is probably one of the most common reasons people will hire a program to speak before they hire a human. AI programs are either free, or their cheap compared to the human alternative. Smaller producers with less-picky audiences are rejoicing! Meanwhile, us voiceover actors just lost most of our YouTube-based clients.
For my podcast episode, I needed a cowboy-ish voice to read some lines and add interest to the story being told. With AI, it wasn't difficult to find a couple voices that would do the job. Their tone and rhythm wasn't exactly what I'd envisioned, but searching for them was easy, and they were good enough to get the job done.
Had I decided to go with a human actor, I'd have hundreds of options and would be able to select the perfect voice. That said, the AI route made finding a decent-fitting voice faster and easier.
I was lucky I only needed a few lines read here and there, because if there's one thing AI hasn't mastered yet, it's acting. Not only were some words pronounced wrong (despite being spelled correctly,) but the AI voice still carried the infamous droning quality of a robot--even if it was more well-hidden than it used to be. The AI voice I selected was just barely adequate enough to remain on the podcast, and it motivated me to look for ways to find real actors within my budget. You know...the human kind of actor.
Most professional voice actors can participate in something called a "live directed session." Whether it's over Zoom or in-person, producers can listen to the voice talent's delivery and ask for a different feeling, tone, pronunciation, etc. Even outside a live session, most VO artists will give their client one or two free revisions to help that client get the perfect sound for their project.
With AI, it's not so easy. You can't say, "Okay, I want those last few words with more heartbreak!" to a computer program.
AI does have a few options to help you tailor your delivery, but there's a learning curve when it comes to mastering the software. In the end, even AI masters can't quite replicate the call of an authentic human being.
I can't knock AI too much--it is, after all, one of the guest speakers in my podcast! It's easy to use, and for small-to-medium projects, it's free. Can't complain about that! However, us voiceover artists can breathe easy. We are professional actors, and AI hasn't matched us quite yet. That's why clients looking for top-notch quality will still be hiring a human...for now.
If you're interested in your own professional, authentically human voiceover, click on over to my Voiceover Home. There, you can listen to samples and drop me a line.
For readers interested in my mental-health podcast, A Survivor's Guide to Hell, you can find our episodes here.