What is Voice AI and Should You Use AI Voice in Videos

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies greatly simplifies many things for users, but it can also cause confusion if not followed closely. This is especially important in the field of AI voices, as many associate them with low-quality robotic voice acting. However, many modern generators offer results that are not much different from real voices. Let's examine the current situation with AI voices.

What is an artificial intelligence voice

The easiest way to understand what is voice AI technology is to look at its evolution, especially when it comes to recent times. Though the beginnings go back to the 1950s, the leap to today's quality began in the 2010s, when deep neural networks and models like Google's WaveNet and Tacotron were invented. NLP techniques have also played a crucial role in enhancing the naturalness of AI voices by enabling machines to understand and interpret human language.

Speech synthesis became more natural, and AI learned to imitate intonation, pauses, and emotions. Thanks to this, there are now models like GPT-4, ElevenLabs, and Resemble.ai that can create voices that are almost indistinguishable from human ones.

The AI is trained on huge amounts of audio data recorded by real people, so it can analyze the features of speech: intonation, rhythm, stress, etc. The collection of this data is critical in creating high-quality AI voices. AI also analyzes speech patterns to replicate key elements like pitch and accent. Then, based on the text, the AI creates a spectrogram – a visual representation of the sound – which is converted into an audio signal using a vocoder. With many modern generators, you can go even further and change the tone, speed, emotion, and other characteristics.

In addition, modern technology makes it possible to even "clone" the voice.

Nowadays, even a small recording is enough for AI voice generators to create an exact copy of a voice based on it. They can also change its "gender", age, accent or tone, such as making a male voice sound more female-like or adding an "aging" effect.

Adding emotions (joy, sadness, anger) to speech is also important and especially useful for advertising. However, the multilingualism of AI voices can be their biggest attraction — generators now offer more languages, along with the right accent and intonation. One of the most common examples is Google Translate, which uses AI for voice translations.

How to use AI voice in videos

Like real voices, AI-generated ones suit many media types, including videos. AI voices can generate responsive and human-like speech for various applications. As such, anyone can use them to:

• Voice lectures, courses, instructions, or presentations. AI voices can convert written content into spoken words. On YouTube and other platforms, you can find a lot of video tutorials explaining complex topics that use AI voice overs. AI voices make complex topics easier to understand.
• Create voice tracks for commercials, promos, or product presentations. Nowadays, you can often see such ads on social media.
• Translate and dub videos into different languages for an international audience. For example, in a matter of minutes, you can convert the speech from an English video into Spanish, French, Chinese, etc.
• Create voices for cartoon, animation, or video game characters. It may sound weird for main characters, but can be useful for voicing NPCs (non-player characters) in games.
• Creating unique voices for experimental videos, podcasts, or art projects. For example, you can use a "robot voice" for sci-fi content.

Using a cloned voice of a celebrity or brand for voice overs. However, in this case, it is worth remembering about the possible legal issues and checking how it looks for the voice of a particular person.

Benefits of using AI voice in videos

If you are still uncertain about using AI voices in your videos, think about whether the following factors could make a difference for you.

AI in general exists to facilitate monotone processes, offering many advantages. The most obvious is saving money, as there is no need to hire actors or rent a studio.

AI voice acting is ideal if there's a need to create many videos (like educational courses or advertising). It allows for quicker production, giving time to focus on other aspects of the project. The training process lets AI models quickly understand speech patterns and generate new speech effectively.

Flexibility is useful too – you can easily change any part of the generated result without having to re-record and coordinate meetings with the voice actor.

Also, many newbie vloggers and even those with a large audience are not sure they want to disclose anything about themselves other than the authorship of their videos. In such cases, AI voice helps to maintain privacy.

AI voice vs human speech

Although AI voice has various advantages, it is not always the best choice in every situation. Before determining what suits your project, it's important to explore the distinctions between human speech and AI voice actors. When assessing the pros and cons, consider the following factors: cost, quality, flexibility, accessibility, and ethics.

AI voice

AI voices offer numerous advantages, such as cost-effectiveness, instant responses, and extensive customization options, making them suitable for various applications. However, they come with disadvantages, including limited emotional expressiveness and ethical considerations, lacking the nuanced adaptability of human voice actors. See the table below to see the major concerns.

Human voice

Human speech adds authenticity and emotional depth, enhancing viewer engagement, but it can pose challenges like variability in performance and higher costs. The table below outlines some of the pros and cons to illustrate the complexities involved.

When to choose AI vs human voice over

Whichever one to use largely depends on your project type, capabilities, finances, and personal goals. While AI voices open new avenues for content creators, offering multiple pathways to enhance their reach, human voice is still more preferable to create a more personalized experience.

AI voice is a good option for:

• Educational videos, lectures, courses, or instructions.
• Advertising and marketing, promotional videos or presentations.
• Localization and translation of content into other languages.
• Creation of character voices for animation and games.
• Test projects, like creating prototypes or presenting ideas.

The human voice, in turn, will come in handy in:

• Big-budget projects where emotional depth and uniqueness of the voice acting are important.
• Artistic works, e.g. films or audiobooks, where the narrator's ability to act can make or break the result.
• Reliable informational content, like news or documentaries, where the real voice sounds more trustworthy.

Best AI voice generator tools

There are many AI-powered voice generation tools, each suited to different tasks. For example, Google Cloud Text-to-Speech offers high-quality voices, supports multiple languages and accents, and is suitable for integration into apps and services. Plus, it's free to try.

Those looking for low-cost or free tools can turn to NaturalReader. It is a free speech synthesis tool with basic functionality to help beginners understand how generators work.

If you are curious about how voice cloning works, you can try the Resemble.ai tool. In addition to this functionality, it also offers deepfake detection, which is useful today.

Other versatile generators suitable for most tasks include ElevenLabs. Along with high-quality voices, this tool offers support for emotions and cloning, and is suitable even for professional projects.

How to add AI or human voice over to video

Interested in how to make an AI voice your video? Many generators create an audio track from text, but sometimes you need to do it right during editing, so that you can correct the result at any time.

Consider using an all-in-one online video editor that offers this functionality.

Clideo's video editor features built-in AI voices — a "TTS" option in the left menu — that allows you to add AI voice to video by converting text to speech, which can be freely placed at any point in the video you need.

Though it won't work with overly long texts, you can make a lot of tracks and use different voices to create a dialogue; or overlay them over each other as if several people talk at once.

And if you're a fan of natural voices and would like to make your own voice over, it's also possible. You can find several recording options in the "Record" tab on the left, with "Audio" being the one to use. The whole process can be done on the same page, so you may edit every part you want without having to redo the previous edits or exporting the video multiple times.

FAQs

What is AI voice?

It's an audio that is not recorded by a person but synthesized based on the actual recordings. It imitates human speech using machine learning and natural language processing technologies. AI voices convert written content into spoken words, making it accessible in audio format.

How do I generate AI-generated voices?

Use specialized software to do it, or take a look at editors or tools where this function is included among others. If you are just starting to use AI generation, it is worth paying attention to the latter. These tools make it easier to obtain high-quality voices.

Which AI voice is best for my video?

It depends on what your project is and what you want to achieve. If you need various voices and the ability to fine-tune each phrase, you may need to use professional tools, so it would be good to familiarize yourself with the process of creating AI voice overs.

Conclusion

AI voices provide endless opportunities for creators – they are affordable, quick to make, and flexible. However, even the most state-of-the-art generators won't give the same result as a natural human voice can. The choice of which depends on your goals, budget, and audience. Sometimes, you can combine both approaches to achieve the best result!