While synthetic voice-overs for articles are becoming standard, leading publishers are now using Gen AI to make audio more personal, local, and interactive. Here's a look at three innovative use cases from outlets like the BBC, TIME, and Business Insider.
▪️ First, audio localisation. The BBC launched an audio bulletin for football news where the AI voice represents the specific dialects of fans from Liverpool, Aston Villa, and Newcastle, instead of a generic British voice-over.
▪️Norway's Bergens Tidende (
@btno) did something similar. "Local identity is perhaps our main selling point... The initial ambition was to create the world's first cloned synthetic voice in media with a distinct local dialect," says their Development Editor,
@JanStianVold.
▪️The result? "From the very start, most of them were impressed by the quality of the voice, and also how much it reminded them of a true voice from Bergen." They now see a 50% increase in daily plays since the initial phase.
▪️Second, audio personalisation. With a large library of audio articles, Bergens Tidende is now using algorithms to create personalised, Spotify-style playlists for their audience based on their daily and weekly production.
▪️"This has opened our eyes to format personalisation," remarks Vold. "Everybody talks about content personalisation, but automatically providing users with preferred format could be a gamechanger."
▪️Business Insider also launched a creative audio briefing feature that delivers summaries of their top stories. The audience can select which stories they want to "Dive Deeper" on, giving them more control over their news consumption.
▪️Third, audio interaction. Last summer, TIME launched an audio feature that uses Gen AI to share their top stories as a conversation between two bots, named Henry and Lucy after the magazine's co-founder.
▪️The conversation is generated from TIME's own newsletter, "The Brief," using OpenAI's technology to create a script and conversational AI voices. This approach aims to reach younger, news-avoidant audiences who prefer personality-led podcasts.
❓These experiments show how AI can be used not just for efficiency, but to create more engaging and accessible user experiences. As audio becomes a key part of the news routine, which of these innovations—localisation, personalisation, or interaction—holds the most promise?
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