Best AI Tools for Text-to-Speech
Text-to-speech is one of the coolest applications of modern AI technology. While it existed for years, even decades, it was the advances in modern algorithms that made it more powerful than ever.
Today, it is hard, if not impossible, to distinguish between real voice and the voice generated by modern AI.
Speaking of “modern AI,” these tools have an array of different use cases. For instance, you can use them to “listen” to documents, articles, PDFs, emails, and any other text.
Or you can rely on text-to-speech in podcast and video production, which can come in particularly handy for non-native speakers.
We’ve just scratched the surface here, but you get the idea. Here are a few of the best text-to-speech tools:
ElevenLabs by ElevenLabs Inc.
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Make one person speak in the voice of another with ease
- There are voice profiles that can laugh when needed
- The pricing is reasonable, and you can even try it for free
- We would like to see a few more controls on the output
ElevenLabs dubs its product to offer the “most realistic and versatile AI speech software, ever” — delivering rich and lifelike voices to creators and publishers. You can test that claim right on the homepage of their website.
The company’s Speech Synthesis is powered by their proprietary deep learning model to allow users to voice anything from a single sentence to a whole book at a fraction of the time and cost traditionally involved in recording.
This creation process happens inside ElevenLabs’ Voice Lab, which lets users clone voices from samples, clone their own voice, or design entirely new synthetic voices from scratch.
The tool is meant, among other things, to help businesses grow their audiences by expanding into audio. In that sense, it lets them quickly generate top-quality spoken audio in any voice, with the underlying algorithms rendering human intonation and inflections with rock-solid fidelity and adjustments based on context.
ElevenLabs is used for storytelling, reading news articles, and audiobooks.
Speechify
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Very handy for going through long texts you would rather listen than read
- Mobile apps make Speechify accessible while on the go
- Useful for writers who could use it for editing
- Some voices sound like robots, and you can tell it's an AI
Speechify is an AI-powered text-to-speech application designed to transform written text into spoken words. It enables users to “listen” to documents, articles, PDFs, emails, and any other text they would usually read. This technology is particularly handy for people who want to consume text-based content while on the go or while multitasking. It is also highly beneficial for individuals with reading difficulties or visual impairments.
Speechify offers different features depending on the platform. For instance, there is a Google Chrome extension you can use to turn any text viewed in the browser into a natural-sounding voice. This is very cool when you want to listen to articles or documents online.
Then there’s the Speechify app for iOS that allows users to listen to any text on their iPhone, iPad, or through Safari. This can come in particularly useful while commuting, working out, or doing chores around the house. Needless to say, the Android app works in a similar fashion.
It is worth adding that the benefits of using Speechify go beyond mere convenience. By converting text to speech, users can boost their understanding and focus, as well as retain more information from the content they consume. This makes it a valuable tool for learners. Plus, you get to use it in the gym, while strolling in the park, or while relaxing on the couch.
Also, Speechify makes the editing process faster for writers, letting them hear errors and fix them immediately. And unsurprisingly, Speechify has over 20 million downloads.
Resemble AI
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Support for more than 30 languages
- You can convert your voice into any language
- Over 50 voices available from the Marketplace
- Scammers and robocall operators love it, too
Resemble AI is a text-to-speech tool that creates human-like voices using deep learning to produce realistic speech synthesis. As such, the service is meant to be used for various purposes, including in/for call centers, smart assistants, advertisements, and entertainment.
It offers text-to-speech, speech-to-speech, neural audio editing, language dubbing, emotions, real-time voice cloning, localizing, and Resemble Fill capabilities. Resemble also provides an API for developers to integrate these capabilities into their apps.
As of May 2023, users generated more than 2,000,000 minutes of audio per month on Resemble.
Among its best-known clients are the World Bank Group, Netflix, Leo Burnett, and Boingo, to name a few.
LOVO
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Easy to use, allows anyone to create great-sounding videos
- Not just for English speakers, LOVO supports many languages
- You can try it for free
- Some (though not all) voices in non-English languages are not the best
LOVO offers an AI voice generator with realistic text-to-speech and voice cloning that will “captivate your audience.”
Dubbed the “most advanced AI voice generator and text-to-speech tool,” it can save thousands of dollars and hours of time in generating realistic and high-quality voiceovers. LOVO’s cutting-edge technology produces super realistic voices that are almost impossible to distinguish from real human voices.
The tool is easy to use and makes generating voiceovers effortless, even for those with no prior experience in audio production. As such, LOVO is perfect for businesses, content creators, educators, and anyone looking to create engaging content that stands out from the crowd.
It will streamline your content creation process so you can focus on delivering your message to your audience.
LOVO comes with an extensive library of voices, languages, and accents, ensuring that you find the perfect voice to match your brand or project. The tool includes over 500 voices in 100 languages and will let you create compelling videos with voice for marketing, education, games and more. Check it out.
FakeYou by Storyteller.ai
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Lets anyone create professional-sounding voices
- Use voice to add personality to your messages
- Great for making "regular" PowerPoint presentations more fun
- No free plan, though you can test some services for free
Previously known as Vocodes, FakeYou offers a set of audio and video tools that are mostly made for content creators and, well, having fun with friends.
One of the tools lets you speak as your favorite characters, making it perfect for content creators and anyone looking to add personality to their messages.
Another one will convert text to speech, allowing you to choose between more than 3,000 characters.
Finally, there is the Video Lip Sync service that will create a video featuring your favorite characters saying something you’ve written. This is where the real fun starts.
FakeYou is not free, but you can try some of its services without paying a dime. Then, if you decide it works for you, select between the three plans FakeYou offers.
What can AI text-to-speech tools do for you?
These powerful tools can both help users in their jobs and entertain or make some things easier for them. Here’s what these tools can do:
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Listen to the Internet
Instead of reading web pages and documents, you can use AI to listen to them. You can copy/paste text or upload documents and have AI read it to you. Or, you can do that right from your web browser with some tools offering easy-to-use browser extensions.
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Listen while on-the-go
We have also seen some AI tools offering mobile apps that will let you convert text into speech. Like that’s the case on a computer, here too – you can copy/paste, upload a document, or have the AI read the page for you.
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Listen to photos
Some of these tools include a mobile app that lets you take a photo of any text, like a page from a book or a handwritten note, and then the app will read it out loud to you. This feature can be particularly handy for people with visual impairment.
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Revoicing
Another cool feature we’ve seen is called “revoice,” and it allows you to create a digital copy of your own voice with AI and then generate audio just by typing. The results can be so impressive that it’s scary.
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Multi-language support
Many of these tools are not limited to English and will be able to “do their magic” in other languages, in some cases even more than 100 different languages and dialects. As you would expect, the more “popular” languages are better supported since their models have been trained on more data (different voices).
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Audio edit with text
After an AI tool gets the audio file, you can further edit it with text. Instead of doing some tech mumbo-jumbo, some AI tools let you write what you want to change in an audio file. From that point, AI will read your command, understand it, and act accordingly (change the audio file).
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Podcast creation
Since some folks use text-to-speech for podcast creation, some of these tools come with specific features for podcasters. For instance, they can generate an RSS feed that can then be submitted to aggregators and platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, and Google Podcasts.
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Collaboration
Last but not least, some of these tools are created with teamwork in mind. As a result, multiple users can contribute to the audio editing process, with different team members changing different parts of the audio file.
AI has changed text-to-speech both for good and bad (think: deep fake videos). However, it is clearly here to stay, and if you need this capability – we suggest checking out some of the tools listed on this page. Do let us know if you think we missed something…