What are AI voice generators and how do these work?

User harnessing text-to-speech technology for marketing
August 30, 2023
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Voice technology has become increasingly popular as more companies use it to create an efficient customer service experience and memorable interactions. In today’s digital landscape, AI often powers voice technology, enabling a computer to understand and respond to spoken language. This makes using AI for voice crucial in creating more natural, successful conversations between humans and computers and driving growth.

In this blog, we’ll discuss how voice generators work, the benefits of using voice AI, and some ways to use AI-powered voice technology.

How AI voice generators work

AI voice generators use text-to-speech technology to convert written text into audio. Let’s review the step-by-step process of how these generators create speech.

Step 1: Text processing

The first thing the voice generator does is convert the written text phonetically and linguistically. 

Step 2: Linguistic modeling 

Then, the generator utilizes linguistic rules to determine pronunciation, emphasis, and intonation for the AI voice.

Step 3: Acoustic modeling

Next, the voice generator maps linguistic features to acoustic patterns of human speech.

Step 4: Prosody modeling 

The voice generator then applies various techniques, such as pitch, inflection, and speed, to make the audio sound more natural.

Step 5: Waveform generation

Finally, the voice generator creates a continuous audio waveform from these acoustic patterns, generating the final product. 

Together, these interconnected models collaborate to produce coherent spoken output from text input, making AI voice technology suitable for appointment reminders, customer support, music, and more.

Benefits of AI voice generators

AI voice generators offer numerous advantages over traditional voice recordings. Let’s explore common advantages to using AI for voice.

1. Efficiency and scalability

Voice generators are efficient, cost-effective, and don’t require special software or skills to operate—so you don’t have to hire a voice actor or sound engineer. These AI voice generators automate the process of creating voice content, enabling businesses to create a large volume of audio material quickly. As a result, businesses can scale content creation efforts without compromising on quality or incurring excessive time and resource costs.

2. Consistency and personalization

Voice generators can generate a range of voices, allowing businesses to create more diverse characters and voices for target audiences. Businesses can then develop unique brand voices for various applications, maintaining a consistent tone and style across all interactions and platforms. This personalization enhances customer engagement and recognition, fostering a stronger connection with consumers.

3. Accessibility and inclusivity

Voice generators increase the accessibility of digital content to diverse audiences, including the visually impaired. With converted written text into natural speech, businesses can provide audio versions of content, ensuring inclusivity and reaching more users. This feature is particularly valuable for e-books, online articles, educational resources, and other digital materials.

Use cases for voice AI 

The diversity of AI applications has great potential, including reshaping the way consumers interact with businesses. Here are some popular ways to use AI-generated voice content.

1. Customer service

Powered by conversational AI, interactive virtual assistant (IVA) systems can transform customer service with automated yet personalized interactions, reducing the need for a live agent. This allows businesses to offer instant responses to common queries, guide users through troubleshooting, and process routine transactions. Additionally, voice AI frees up human agents to handle more complex issues. 

2. Marketing and advertising

Marketers can use voice AI to create unique audio content that includes customized brand voices for advertisements and marketing campaigns. Businesses can also use voice AI to develop AI-generated voice-overs for commercials, podcasts, and interactive advertisements. Additionally, voice AI can facilitate personalized marketing campaigns by addressing customers by name and tailoring messages based on their preferences.

3. Appointment reminders

While appointment reminder texts remain popular, many businesses also incorporate IVA to streamline communication with clients. IVA enables you to send timely reminders, reducing no-shows and optimizing scheduling. AI voice systems can then provide essential details, like date, time, and location. Additionally, recipients can confirm, reschedule, or cancel appointments through voice commands.

4. E-learning

Businesses can develop engaging educational content with AI-generated voices, thanks to voice generators converting written material into spoken words. Additionally, voice AI can assist language learners with pronunciation practice and offer real-time feedback, making it an invaluable tool for improving language skills and comprehension.

5. Entertainment 

Voice AI can also aid in the production of many creative pursuits. For example, these generators can create realistic voice-overs for animations and video games, where AI-powered characters can respond dynamically to player inputs, creating immersive and engaging gameplay. Additionally, for music, AI-generated voices can narrate stories behind songs or artists or produce new songs.

Create custom call experiences with Twilio Programmable Voice 

Increasingly, voice AI generators are a popular component to successfully achieve business communication strategies—and it’s no wonder why with its diverse use cases and applications. 

Now that you know how to incorporate AI-powered voice to create custom call experiences, give Twilio Programmable Voice a try. Programmable Voice enables you to reach customers reliably as you scale your operations. Plus, at SIGNAL 2023, we unveiled the CustomerAI Perception Engine, a new way to build rich customer profiles by using AI to harness data within Voice conversations.

Ready to start using Programmable Voice? Sign up for free today.