What Do Brands Need to Know About Generative AI for Audio and CTV Marketing?

Mention the possibilities of generative AI to players across the audio and connected TV (CTV) media and marketing landscape, and you’ll get back a mix of excitement and apprehension. From content creators and voice talent, to brand advertisers and media publishers, the industry has a long history of eagerness to solve acute obstacles and pain points. But many just aren’t sure whether generative AI—in its march to replace familiar status quo practices—is a welcome disruption…or a threat.

I’d argue that industry players who closely examine generative AI capabilities and the technology’s potential impact on their current roles will find a lot to like. Today, generative AI is fully capable of automating and optimizing production of audio tracks based on written scripts and templates. In particular, generative AI’s ability to rapidly create context-specific content will deliver targeted and personalized experiences on an entirely new scale—and that benefits everyone involved. Let’s take a look at how generative AI strategies can enhance the efficiency and impact of efforts across the audio and CTV industry while increasing that all-important metric: audience engagement.

How generative AI benefits content creators

For audio and CTV voiceover, the core value of generative AI lies in its ability to accelerate content production and enhance audio quality. As its headline wow-factor, generative AI empowers creators to synthesize voices. Using sample voice recordings as training materials, generative AI can then convincingly reproduce that voice in content without the original speaker needing to say another word.

The benefit is unprecedented scalability. Take, for example, a podcast host or team that would gladly put out more episodes each month…if time and resource limitations weren’t a factor. Imagine at the same time the increased revenue possibilities from that change: not just from expanding content production, but also from offering more customized and targeted ad content at a scale impossible with conventional techniques—but very possible with generative AI automation. Importantly, generative AI enables rapid production of contextual ads, allowing content creators to build out myriad versions of an ad in just minutes, with each version customized to speak to the needs and context of specific audiences or even individuals.

Audio media and CTV content creators will have the choice of utilizing generative AI at several different levels as they modernize from incumbent practices. Creators can simply tap into generative AI to enhance audio production quality and do their editing work for them, using tools that automatically edit audio to remove conversation pauses, gaps, or distracting background noise. They can go a step further by using text-to-speech to produce full episodes of content, just by writing a script and allowing voice-trained generative AI to go to work. Generating content this way eliminates both recording time and editing time, as generative AI produces flawless audio on the first pass that’s nevertheless fully convincing to audiences—even though no natural sound is ever being recorded.

Empowered by generative AI, creators might even choose to completely forego the expenses of studio and audio equipment, abstracting the production process entirely. Creators can also utilize templates to go beyond verbatim scripts, tasking generative AI with automatically building out content according to set parameters. By harnessing these innovations, creators have broad new opportunities to grow their reach and their revenue.

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How generative AI benefits voice actors

Voice actors that lend their talents to audio marketing or voiceover CTV campaigns can realize the same scalability advantages as audio content creators. Generative AI voice synthesis makes it possible to extrapolate any spoken voice content from a single high-quality reference sample. Voice actors can therefore license their voices for use, appear in countless advertisements, and collect appropriate fees with minimum time and effort. Generative AI automation will also help voice actors by eliminating the repetitive and, frankly, boring parts of the job—giving them more time to focus on creative work.

Big-name voice talent with busy schedules can commit to appearing in audio marketing campaigns with no major ongoing obligations. In this way, voice actors that may currently worry that generative AI innovations will replace them will actually be empowered to expand their presence—and their revenue streams.

How generative AI benefits brands, advertisers, and media publishers

Generative AI has arrived at an especially crucial moment for audio and CTV marketers: audience engagement has been an increasing challenge, and the status quo has been in need of a shakeup. Brands depend on delivering compelling content to the right person at a moment in time when that potential customer is ready to take action. However, the tremendously complex ad personalization and targeting necessary to achieve that goal has been prohibitively expensive and well out of reach. Ineffective targeting feeds into audience disengagement, resulting in reduced ad volume and increased difficulty for media publishers trying to fill their ad inventory. That all can change with generative AI.

Deployed strategically, generative AI puts individualized ad targeting fully in reach: marketers can automatically generate contextual audio and video voiceover ads in real-time that name the listener’s city, the app or platform they’re using, and even the time of day and the current weather. This approach is effective at improving brand metrics while increasing the efficiency of media buying. Advertisers also significantly reduce time and costs. Where traditional ads often require 6+ weeks to record audio files, get client approvals, and revise materials, generative AI eliminates all that extra work, delivering perfect audio and revisions at an industry-changing pace.

Brands and advertisers can further collaborate with content creators and voice talent to engage individuals with ultra-targeted and compellingly-relevant content in a familiar and trusted voice. The result is breakthrough experiences that listeners can’t help but engage with.