Audible Adds AI Conversations With Book Characters
Audible is testing interactive audiobook experiences, starting with an AI-powered conversation with Renfield from Dracula, alongside tools for tracking characters and viewing visual context.
Audible is introducing a way for listeners to speak with characters from its audiobooks. Its new generative AI feature, called Interactive Stories, will begin with Renfield in the company’s Audible Original adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Audible also announced a character guide and a visual feature intended to add context while people listen.
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How the conversation works
Interactive Stories are bonus experiences that place a listener inside a book’s world rather than changing the audiobook itself. In the Dracula experience, Renfield, Dracula’s servant, starts the exchange by assigning the listener a role, a goal and stakes. The listener replies in their own words, and the character responds in real time, according to Engadget and TechCrunch.
TechCrunch reports that creators help establish the foundations of these experiences so they remain connected to the books. For Dracula, Audible says the aim is to stay faithful to the original work. Another Interactive Story is planned for Exoplanet, an upcoming original audio novel by Benjamin Percy. Engadget says that experience was created with Percy and is set for release on November 5.
The reports differ on the rollout’s timing. Engadget says Interactive Stories will launch in beta later this fall and that Audible has not given a firm date. TechCrunch describes the new features as already in beta testing. Both reports identify Dracula as the first title for the conversational experience; its Audible Original adaptation was released on October 1.
More help following and exploring a story
Audible’s Character Guide is designed to make a cast easier to follow in audio. It shows who is speaking on the app’s player page and provides spoiler-free character cards. TechCrunch says the cards include information about the performers behind the voices and that Audible plans to let listeners ask the guide questions as a story unfolds.
Engadget says the guide is already available for Audible’s adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 and is coming to Dracula and Exoplanet. TechCrunch also lists those three titles among the guide’s initial releases.
A separate feature, Visual Explorer, will present images or other visual context at relevant moments in an audiobook. The outlets name different first titles: Engadget says a beta will accompany The Cultural Tutor’s Grand Tour: The Story of Europe in Six Cities, while TechCrunch says it will first appear in Sheehan Quirke’s The Cultural Tutor: A Modern Guide to History, Art and Philosophy in 49 Short Chapters. Audible plans to extend the features to more titles over time, according to TechCrunch.
Sources
This story was compiled by AI from the reports below. Read the originals for the full details.