1 month ago
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A new study finds that in a blind test, audiobook listeners rated an AI multi-cast narration as slightly better than a single human narrator on character-driven scenes. The study was performed by the well-regarded Edison Research, a leader in audio market research, and commissioned by Spoken, an AI audiobook production company.
The findings are interesting when compared to recent consumer research, conducted by Edison and the Audio Publishers Association, which found that listeners are less willing in 2026 to consider AI-narrated audiobooks than they were in 2025. (Learn more.) However, that study relies on self-reported willingness to listen to AI and not a blind test.
While audiobook listeners may be inherently biased against AI narration regardless of its quality (AI is not enjoying positive public sentiment), this study tried to neutralize that bias by concealing which narration was AI. Even so, the Spoken study should be taken with a grain of salt. Listeners didn’t hear both versions and pick the AI, so it’s a stretch to say that listeners prefer AI over human narration. And the comparison is between an AI audiobook with multiple character voices versus one human narrator. So the finding may really be “listeners like full-cast productions” rather than “AI beats humans.” In fact, the study adds the caveat “For exposition without multiple characters, human narration was still preferred.”
Nevertheless, it’s notable that, after hearing the AI multi-cast, 65 percent of respondents said they’d be willing to listen to the full audiobook with Spoken’s Multi-Cast. At the start of the survey, only 31 percent of listeners said they’d be willing to listen to an AI audiobook.
This research is clearly meant to promote the AI multi-cast production that Spoken offers. I hope to follow up later with insights from authors who are going to market with AI narration of any kind on how such titles are performing, especially in relation to their human-narrated catalog. (Are you willing to share numbers? Please get in touch with me!) AI-narrated titles remain a tiny part of the market—0.03 percent of audiobook sales revenue in 2025—but it’s expected to grow.
Here is the press release at Edison; review the full results at Spoken’s website.
