"Can You Hear Me Now!?" -- Advancements in AI and Audio for News Products #NPASummit2024

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1. Can You Hear Me Now?! Advancements in AI Audio for Digital Publishers
2. Well… Hey There! • Evan McGee is a technology entrepreneur, having helped raise >$45MM in VC funding for previous companies. • Designed & deployed global-scale audio/video SaaS products for Fortune 50 companies like Samsung, T-Mobile & Deutsche Telekom. • 10+ years of production ML & AI product deployments in the audio & video spaces. • Sought-after conference speaker and board advisor • Giovanni Moujaes leads product at inewsource, an investigative newsroom in San Diego, and the AI working group within NPA. • Previous work includes OJA-winning 360 video production, audience strategy and emerging platforms intersecting the TV world. • He's left-handed and has the cilantro gene. Giovanni inewsource Evan Everlit
3. Being a Publisher is Hard. Email inboxes tend to be Kinda Crowded Producing Podcasts can be Expensive & Time Consuming. Advancements in AI Audio and its role in our daily consumption habits have evolved to offer new opportunities. Driving Traffic from Social is Challenging.
4. Audio AI’s Advance Great Leaps Forward in Everything from Voices to how they Interact The Future Today Up Next • Speech Recognition & Synthesis: Accurate speech-to-text conversion is widely used in applications like virtual assistants (e.g., Siri, Google Assistant) and transcription tools. Text-to-speech synthesis has advanced significantly with lifelike voices driven by neural networks (e.g., Google's WaveNet). • Audio Content Generation: AI models can now generate music, podcasts, and even synthetic voices tailored for specific purposes like audiobooks or advertisements, such as OpenAI's Jukebox and Descript for audio editing. • Voice Cloning & Personalization: Deep learning has enabled realistic voice cloning from minimal data, allowing personalized voice assistants, custom audio ads, and enhanced accessibility tools. • Emotion & Sentiment Analysis: AI will improve in detecting emotional tones in voice, enhancing user experience for customer support, mental health apps, and adaptive storytelling. • Real-Time Audio Manipulation: Enhanced real-time voice modulation, including pitch shifting and timbre adjustments, will enable more seamless integration for podcasting, gaming, and entertainment. • Interactive Audio Ads & Experiences: With AI-generated audio, advertisers can create highly personalized and interactive audio ads that respond to user feedback or interests in real time. • Full Conversational AI in Audio: Future systems will handle not just real-time conversations but also dynamic audio content generation, creating fully autonomous and context-aware AI audio experiences. • AI-Driven Sound Design & Soundscapes: AI will be capable of generating entire sound environments tailored to specific contexts or preferences, transforming music production, gaming, and virtual worlds. • Multimodal Audio-Visual AI: Integration of audio and visual cues will become standard, allowing for more immersive, synchronized experiences in AR, VR, and interactive media with AI understanding both speech and surrounding environmental sounds.
5. Why Audio? Why Now? Audio’s Shift in Quality and Perception Today Tomorrow 95% https://magnaglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Magna-Spotify-Digital-Audio-Expansiveness-US.pdf Increasingly people are turning to Digital Audio to decouple from the new norm of hybrid and remote work. Digital transformation of short and medium form written media will significantly enrich and diversify the matrix of offerings to consumers. % of people who feel the role of digital audio has changes post-pandemic It’s a break from screen time It’s a way to de-stress I’m looking forward to it more 37% 34% 20% Music Podcast 51% 24% Increase in consumption during pandemic
6. Audio as an engaging format Passive Engagement Enhances Access Reception & Engagement Occasion https://magnaglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Magna-Spotify-Digital-Audio-Expansiveness-US.pdf Digital audio increases opportunity for engagement & ad delivery in more cases and places without significant drop in engagement, or receptivity Podcast TV Shows 43% 17% People with “High Receptivity” to Audio Digital Audio Digital Video 86 Index of engagement by user 114 Multitasking while listening is more common with Digital Audio % of people who multitask and engage while doing one, or more activities Most common ”multitasking activities” were relaxing and cooking 84% Digital Video 92% Digital Audio
7. Let’s talk about it!
8. Thank You! Giovanni Moujaes inewsource Email: giovannimoujaes@inewsource.org Evan McGee Everlit Email: evan.mcgee@everlit.audio