Speechify founder discusses future of AI with the Everyday AI podcast

Are celebrity voices the future of generative AI? Is AI safe? Speechify founder and CEO Cliff Weitzman sat down with Jordan Wilson for Episode 152 of the Everyday AI Podcast to tackle these questions and more.

Everyday AI podcast

The Everyday AI podcast is a popular free daily livestream, podcast, and newsletter that helps everyday people grow their careers with AI. The podcast not only keeps listeners up to date on the latest tips and trends related to the fast-growing space of generative AI, but also ensures they know how to leverage AI to succeed. Since its launch in April 2023, The Everyday AI podcast has garnered 22,000 listeners and 7,800 daily email newsletter subscribers who wish to learn AI insights and strategies to work smarter, not harder, and take their success to new heights with the help of artificial intelligence.

The Speechify story

Cliff Weitzman originally developed Speechify after struggling in college with dyslexia and discovering most textbooks don’t have audiobooks. Today, it’s the #1 text to speech app in the world, with over 150,000 five-star reviews and 25+ million users. How did it become so popular that even Snoop Dogg wanted to partner with the company? Weitzman covered this and so much more in Episode 152 of the Everyday AI podcast that went live on Monday, November 27.

How Speechify works

Weitzman explained how Speechify is built upon the best text to speech (TTS) engine with the highest quality AI voice generator in the world to transform any text to speech, instantly and affordably. With an Android, Mac, and iOS app, and website version as well as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome extensions, Speechify is not just limited to reading digital text, such as PDFs, news articles, Google Docs, and emails, aloud. Using advanced OCR and AI technology, users can quickly snap photos of textbooks, study guides, handwritten notes, and other physical documents and convert them to lifelike audio files in real-time.

Speechify’s use cases & goal

Allowing users to listen to text instead of reading it or while reading it using Speechify’s text highlighting feature, users can absorb information faster, easier, and more efficiently. This has made Speechify a must-have AI tool for students and individuals who struggle with learning differences or disabilities, such as dyslexia, ADHD, low vision, blindness, autism, concussions, and anxiety.

However, while Speechify was predominately used as an assistive technology for those with learning differences in its early years, now all types of people use it, including, according to Weitzman, doctors, lawyers, accountants, people in the military, executives, people in finance, language learners, and multitaskers wishing to boost their productivity and reading speed, thanks to its high-quality natural-sounding voices and OCR technology.

In fact, Weitzman shared that Speechify’s goal is to ensure "reading is never a barrier to learning for anyone, no matter what your background is.”

Celebrity voices

As Speechify has grown, it has had the opportunity to partner with some big-name celebrities. In the episode, Weitzman and Wilson discussed how Speechify came to partner with Snoop Dogg, who lends his own voice to Speechify’s plethora of voice options.

Weitzman explained that many of Speechify’s partnerships come about when people who use the product themselves reach out. He goes on to describe how Snoop Dogg’s agent reached out to Speechify, explaining how Snoop wanted to use his voice to help his audience consume information. This led to Weitzman flying to Snoop Dogg’s in-house studio to record and replicate his voice through voice cloning and speech synthesis technology.

Among Speechify’s 200+ AI voices across various languages, including English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, and more, actress and long-term Speechify investor Gwyneth Paltrow’s voice is also a text to speech voice narrator option.

But with these celebrity voice options that can read anything from social media posts to research papers also come safeguards Speechify implements to avoid misuse.

AI safety & voice cloning

While Speechify recognizes the benefits of AI text to speech tools and voice cloning technology, Weitzman also explained one of Speechify’s utmost concerns is protecting content creators and people because “AI safety is extremely important.”

Implementing safety policies has become even more important as Speechify has expanded its text to speech functionality to launch new products like Speechify Studio, an AI-powered suite of tools that allows content creators to create AI voice overs, custom voices, translate voice overs, automatically transcribe their work, edit videos, and use AI avatars.

For example, Weitzman explains Speechify only allows users to clone their own voice or a voice that’s right next to them, such as a friend who’s given consent, not just any voice on the internet, to protect against misuse as well as identity or copyright infringement.

“Our philosophy in general at Speechify puts rights owners in the driver’s seat," Weitzman said. He also stated that Speechify’s AI technology is not for replacing content creators like audiobook voice actors but to “augment [their] ability to create,” such as helping them produce more content more efficiently.

Additionally, Weitzman revealed that Speechify is currently working on a product that will allow users to easily distinguish whether a voice is a human voice or an AI-generated synthetic voice and, if the voice is fake, where exactly it was originally created - a protection that will help prevent individuals from falling victim to voice scams in which bad actors use a voice changer to mimic the voice of a loved one for nefarious reasons.

Listen to Cliff Weitzman on the Everyday AI podcast

To learn more about how Speechify’s text to speech AI is shaping the future of learning and content creation, listen to this special episode of the Everyday AI podcast on major podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify or listen below:

Podcast Timestamps: 

[00:12:50] Safety in text to voice space

[00:18:12] Use cases for text to speech

[00:21:05] Audience questions

[00:24:10] Future of text to speech

[00:27:28] Is written word becoming less impactful?

[00:31:30] Using text to speech as professionals