The New State of AI Audio
Say what? (3 min read)
54% of marketers (highest % in survey) have noted that digital audio is their top focus for advertising in 2023. That means digital radio, podcasts and other audio formats are still in a growth phase.
Meanwhile, in AI, Oasis front man Bobby Geraghty was surfing YouTube and came across a series of videos in which someone had used brand-new generative-AI software to recreate Oasis songs using new voices via AI. Geraghty watched a tutorial on the software and went to work replacing his own voice in other tracks.
TikTok and YouTube are flooded with music by AI clones, including covers of “Get Lucky,” by AI Michael Jackson, “Party in the U.S.A.,” by AI Ariana Grande, “Song 2,” by AI Kurt Cobain, and “Kill Bill,” by AI Rihanna. Most prolific of all is AI Kanye West, who’s already cut a path through much of the Great American Songbook with versions of “Poker Face,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Y.M.C.A.,” “Man in the Mirror,” “Eye of the Tiger,” “Wicked Game,” “Losing My Religion,” “Ms. Jackson,” “Mr. Brightside,” “Two Princes,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Black Hole Sun,” “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” “Sweet Caroline,” “American Pie,” and “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” among others. Which obviously has created panic at the scale of the introduction of Napster, as I wrote about here.
The software that makes this possible is called SoftVC VITS Singing Voice Conversion, or So-Vits-SVC. It’s free, open source, and can run locally on any computer with a decent GPU, according to Vulture.
So how does this apply to marketing?
The voice space is exploding, no signs of slowing. There’s growing supply, and still more demand. And the space is under monetized, which is why the growth in voice advertising has open-ended opportunity.
Which brings to mind new ideas on how we can maximizing our marketing opportunities, not just in the music industry. Here’s how:
- Lowering costs: You can increase your content creation. By using cloned voices from your team or licensing voices from celebrities and creators, you can have AI provide script reads for podcasts or VO over videos, audiobooks or even audio ads for a lower cost of audio production.
- Increasing scale: Multiply these efforts across your audio efforts (ads, podcasts, etc) for increased scale of content production.
- Creating revenue: You can create and license voices for use in VO to share your branded audio sources while increasing brand awareness.
- Brand awareness: You can create visible PR opportunities with voice stunts, increasing views and brand awareness as consumer interest of AI-voice mashups is increasing exponentially (with permission of course).
In summary, if voice is an opportunity and growing, and AI can replicate any voice — how can you adapt and take advantage for marketing? Sounds like AI in the mix.
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