Cutting corners: A new breed of audiobook is taking over digital bookshelves – ones narrated not by professional voice actors, but by artificial intelligence voices. It’s an AI audiobook revolution that has been turbo-charged by Amazon.

Since announcing a beta tool last year allowing self-published authors to generate AI “virtual voice” narrations for their ebooks, over 40,000 AI-narrated titles have flooded onto Audible, Amazon’s audiobook platform. The eye-popping stat, revealed in a recent Bloomberg report, has many authors celebrating but is also raising red flags for human narrators.

For indie writers wanting to crack the lucrative audiobook market without paying hefty professional voiceover fees, Amazon’s free virtual narration tool is a game-changer. One blogger cited in the report claimed converting an ebook to audio using the AI narration took just 52 minutes, bypassing the expensive studio recording route.

Others have mixed reactions. Last month, an author named George Steffanos launched an audiobook version of his existing book, posting that while he prefers human-generated works to those generated by AI, “the modest sales of my work were never going to support paying anyone for all those hours of narration.”

But not everyone is giving the virtual voice glowing reviews. While the AI audiobooks are clearly labeled as such, some listeners have complained there’s no option to filter them out when browsing Audible’s catalog.

Human narrators are also sounding the alarm about potential job losses as the technology improves. “[It’s] not taken all the jobs. But it’s trying to,” narrator Ramon de Ocampo ominously warned on social media about Amazon’s virtual voice threat.

Major publishers like HarperCollins have already inked deals with AI voice companies to produce audiobooks across languages using the tech. Even Apple started selling audiobooks with AI-based narration last year with voices seemingly based on real actors’ performances. Controversy erupted when those actors said they didn’t know about it.

The tensions at play highlight the differing priorities and tradeoffs facing each group. For budget-constrained indie authors, easy and free audio conversions are a no-brainer. But for listeners accustomed to human narration quality, having no filter option is frustrating. Meanwhile, publishers want to embrace cost-saving tech without alienating consumers. But narrators fear having careers undermined.

As this AI-voiced audiobook tidal wave keeps growing on Audible, all sides are being forced to grapple with balancing creative integrity against commercial incentives.

Masthead credit: Distingué CiDDiQi