Summary:
- The importance and nuances of localization
- Using AI voice for greater accessibility and a better user experience
- How tools like Veritone Voice can help brands expand their market reach
The world has become more connected than ever before, and as a result, content-producing businesses must expand their focus beyond a single market audience and think about reaching a global audience instead. Consumer preferences play a significant role in this, with online experiences and streaming service consumption pressuring organizations and content creators of all sizes to craft content for bigger, wider, and potentially untapped markets.
So how can brands and organizations utilize artificial intelligence (AI) voice, sometimes referred to as synthetic voice, to expand their audience reach through greater localization and accessibility?
The Importance of Localization
The market for global language services has been steadily increasing annually on a worldwide scale; in 2022, it reached a market value of $62.2 billion and is projected to climb up to nearly $99 billion by the year 2028.
In the UK and the US alone, two-thirds of people watch foreign-language content, and 76% of millennials watch foreign-language TV shows and films. This preference extends beyond just consuming media, as 90% of online shoppers choose their native language when given the option.
Aside from online shopping and visual media, audio content like podcasting can utilize localization as an immediate way to make on-demand content accessible to new markets—especially as podcasts are projected to reach nearly 505 million listeners worldwide by 2024.
Additionally, there’s a need in advertisement localization to create local, market, or regional tags on an ad without requiring the voiceover talent to record numerous variations of the spot.
With 7,100 languages spoken globally, 33 of which are spoken by more than 50 million people, this presents a significant challenge for content creation, especially when considering regional dialects. Furthermore, finding and hiring specialists for multiple languages, along with other logistical requirements, makes it challenging to execute, particularly for smaller companies.
In the past, content creators and brands had to hire language experts and translators who could adapt original content to different languages and dialects to reach new target audiences. Although this process had its own difficulties, there are still issues that content creators and brands have to overcome, including the impact on financial resources, coordinating internal and third-party teams, and meeting demanding deadlines.
But localization goes beyond simply translating content into other languages—the quality of AI-based voices can vary significantly, so paying attention to the realism and the authenticity of the localized voice content is key.
Organizations should not overlook the importance of making their content accessible to different language-speaking audiences while leveraging the advances in AI technology. However, it is crucial to maintain the human element in a localization strategy, as an essential component of driving engagement. Failure to focus on the experience can result in alienating the audience, making it difficult to capture their attention. With so much content available, it is critical to ensure your message isn’t getting lost in translation.
Accessibility Beyond Language and Translation
While technology has made it easier for businesses to reach new markets, brands must also consider how to ensure a consistent omnichannel experience for all, delivering high-quality, lifelike, and human-sounding content, regardless of their language, dialect, or potential disabilities.
From an accessibility perspective, most people prefer not to listen to a robotic voice, especially when watching movies, TV shows, or playing games. Robotic-sounding synthetic voice, whether in the brand’s native language or a translation, removes the human element from the experience. This is unacceptable in today's world, especially when given the capabilities offered by AI voice technology.
Another opportunity for AI-based voice to help with accessibility is audio descriptions. Audio descriptions are used to narrate or describe visual cues that may otherwise be missed by those who are blind or visually impaired. With AI voice, brands can offer natural-sounding audio descriptions that create a more user-friendly experience for more audience members without sacrificing budget or studio time.
Do More With Veritone Voice
Historically, extending your brand to new audiences and markets has required a substantial investment of resources. Only large companies with significant budgets could afford to invest in reaching new markets and expanding their brand. However, AI voice technology has leveled the playing field, enabling faster, more cost-effective, and scalable content localization for everyone.
AI voice is transforming the way content is localized and made more accessible by creating opportunities for greater scalability and acceleration—both of which are needed to keep up with an ever-increasing demand for high-quality content.
AI-powered voice solutions (like Veritone Voice) are making previously time-consuming and expensive tasks like text-to-speech translation and audio descriptions more accessible to brands of all sizes.
With Veritone Voice, users have access to premium and stock voices or can build their own custom voice for brand consistency. Through these methods, organizations and content creators are able to integrate better localization and accessibility into their existing and future content without sacrificing brand identity or quality. These custom methods are also creating new monetization opportunities for the voice-acting community, allowing for greater scalability and the ability to take on more opportunities without the need to take up studio time every time something needs to be recorded.
To learn more about Veritone Voice and how it can help your brand expand your audience, reach out to one of our team members or continue reading on our blog.
