If nobody listens to an AI podcast, does it still make a sound? Does it matter that it’s in a foreign language?
Spotify is testing a new AI feature for its podcasts that would translate them into different languages while imitating the hosts' voices. Episodes of some of the streaming service’s most popular English-language podcasts will be translated into Spanish, French, and German while theoretically keeping the host's voice, intonations, and cadence similar to the original versions—emulating what Spotify called the “speaker’s distinctive speech characteristics.” The technology was developed by Spotify but the underlying a voice generation technology comes from OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, the company told Fortune.
