Is AI Killing Voiceover? Not So Fast

AI is killing voiceover.

Or is it?

An email to George kicks off a much bigger conversation this week about what artificial intelligence is actually doing to voiceover and audio production right now, rather than what everyone thinks it might do sometime in the future.

There's no question some areas have already been hit. IVR, phone prompts, repetitive information reads and other work where consistency matters more than performance are obvious targets. In some cases, AI may simply be a faster and more practical way of doing the job.

But what happens when performance, judgement, direction, taste and creativity matter?

Robbo talks about putting a real commercial script through ElevenLabs and trying repeatedly to coax a usable performance from it. The result was nowhere near the performance that ultimately went to air. The guys also discuss an experiment where someone reportedly spent hours directing an AI voice to achieve something a good human performer could deliver in minutes.

That leads to the bigger question.

Are we actually replacing creative people, or are we mostly automating the work that required very little creative interpretation in the first place?

The conversation moves through advertising, radio, post production and sound design, including the danger of companies judging AI purely by the immediate saving on a spreadsheet. Robbo raises the possibility that reductions in quality may take years to become obvious in audience behaviour, much like cost cutting in radio can take time to show up in ratings.

There's also another side to AI that rarely gets discussed.

Could voice actors eventually license their own synthetic voices?

Could agents represent both the performer and an authorised AI version of that performer?