Something's different about my annual year-in-review post this year:
You can LISTEN to the post. Except, here's the crazy thing...
I never actually recorded the audio.
Yet it still sounds like me. Because the voice is an AI-generated version of my voice.
Crazy, right?! ๐คฏ
The first time I listened to it, sitting in my home office, I was weirded out.
I was listening to my voice, yet I'd never recorded the segment!
Such a strange experience.
I'm high on this trend of adding audio to written articles, for two reasons:
1) Anecdotally, I prefer to consume content now via audio rather than text.
Audio is easy to listening to while I'm walking, doing dishes or driving, and it gives me a chance to fit learning into my day, which is more important since I became a parent.
2) The data: Adding audio to articles has been proven to increase engagement.
Here's the caveat: I can't stand listening to audio that sounds like AI.
The impersonal nature is worse than reading the text, so whenever that's the case, I turn it off.
That's why I love what Everlit's doing in this space, making it possible to clone my own voice.
Of course it doesn't sound *exactly* like me, but it's pretty darn close.
Right now they offer audio embeds via a WordPress plugin. I can't wait until they roll out the ability to do this in newsletters and an app where I can scroll through my favorite creators and hear their articles read to me.
Everlit is run by my friends Evan McGee and Evan Woolley, and you can get into their beta by emailing hello@Everlit.audio.
Right now I only have this feature on my personal blog, but we're planning to roll it out soon to They Got Acquired, too.
Give it a listen, and let me know what you think! Link to listen in the comments.
