Summary Custom AI voice launched on Aftenposten in early 2023. Unique voice developed from podcast host Anne Lindholm. 58% average audio article completion rate observed. Daily usage of audio articles on par with podcasts. In the news sector, Schibsted News Media has a reputation for consistently delivering excellence through innovative product strategies. Notably, the group is renowned for their fearless transition to a digital-first publishing model, making early investments into video, and nimble experimenting with paywalls and new revenue models. Most recently, Schibsted turned to audio ..read more

We're excited to announce that we've just released a major update to our AI-powered audio CMS. This update includes a new BeyondWords Player, REST API, and voice cloning support for several new locales. New BeyondWords Player The new player represents a radical evolution in our approach to user experience. We rebuilt it from the ground up, introducing powerful new features such as floating widgets, playback from segments, intuitive playback controls and more. Floating widgets allow you to listen to audio in a floating window, so you can keep browsing while you listen. Playback from segments ..read more

*This post is read by Tony (standard voice) and Maria (premium voice). Text-to-speech (TTS) is the artificial production of human speech based on input text. TTS can be viewed as a sequence-to-sequence mapping where text gets transformed into one of its many possible speech forms. However, this process is not as straightforward as it might seem. Any user of early sat nav systems should be able to recall numerous instances when the technology mishandled pronunciations, often resulting in an embarrassing slip. Nuances in pronunciation become particularly important when dealing with delicate new ..read more

*This post is read by Tony (standard voice) and Maria (premium voice). We've rounded up the most important audio engagement statistics from 2022, including AI audio narration benchmarks from our own analytics We're listening more than ever The Infinite Dial surveys found that online audio engagement grew considerably in 2022. The percentage of the population listening weekly reached: 71% in Australia (up five percentage points)1 67% in the US (up five percentage points)2 64% in Canada (up three percentage points)3 40% of listeners plan their day and activities around audio content.4 Spoken ..read more

We’ve updated our pricing plans to make it easier for you to find the right fit. Our simpler pricing system includes three plans: Pilot, which allows you to try before you buy Pro, designed for independent publishers and small teams Enterprise, designed for larger-scale publishers What's the right plan for me? The Pilot plan allows you to test BeyondWords out and get set up before subscribing. If you’re converting on-site content into audio, you can set up your CMS integration using our API, WordPress plugin, Ghost integration, or RSS Feed Importer and enable automatic player embedding. If ..read more

Today, we've added four premium voices to our AI voice library — 'Jodi', 'Adam', 'Kate', and ‘Maria’ — all created in collaboration with professional voice actors. This means it's easier than ever for American-English publishers to find an AI voice that resonates with their listeners. These lifelike AI voices are ideal for a variety of audio projects, from audio articles and newsletters to listenable landing pages. They're available exclusively to paying users under terms set by the voice actors themselves — just drop us an email if you'd like to request access through our text-to-speech pla ..read more

Today, we're launching a US version of our Voice Cloning Contract (VCC) (formerly the Voice Services Agreement Template or VSAT) in partnership with the Open Voice Network. This open legal template facilitates safe contracting between voice actors and companies creating AI voice clones. The VCC empowers voice actors to license their voice IP under a set of transparent terms. The contract aims to give voice talent confidence while working in AI and lays out how royalties should be returned on a usage basis. Voice actors can also specify in which sectors (or use cases) they would have their cl ..read more

Lots of text-to-speech service providers use AI voices from Amazon Web Services, Yandex, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. But these voices sound best when you use them in BeyondWords.* Why? It’s thanks to our natural language processing algorithms. Setting voices up for success AI voices can interpret text in two formats: plain text, or speech synthesis markup language (SSML). SSML tags provide extra information to the AI voice, clarifying pronunciations and improving speech flow. Using SSML therefore ensures a higher-quality voice output. Some text-to-speech services only allow yo ..read more

Please note that this post was published before SpeechKit rebranded to BeyondWords. As consumer demand for audio increases, more publishers are turning to text-to-speech. AI audio publishing platforms like SpeechKit offer a quick and cost-effective way to make written content listenable. But how are visitors engaging with these AI audio–enabled articles? To find out, we’ve compared listener and non-listener engagement across more than 28 million sessions in which the SpeechKit Player was loaded last year. AI audio captures the attention of new users The average new user spends just 2 seconds ..read more

Please note that this post was published before SpeechKit rebranded to BeyondWords. This is the SpeechKit changelog for June 2021, where you can learn about the latest updates and improvements to our AI voice publishing platform. In addition to overall performance improvements this month, we introduced a few new features: Added webhooks You can now use webhooks to get notifications when an event happens. Webhooks are particularly useful for asynchronous events, like when an audio has been processed, updated, or deleted. For more information, see our webhooks doc. Added multi-voice asset suppo ..read more