Meet Madison and Jackson, the AI narrators or "digital voices" soon to be reading some of the audiobooks on Apple Books. They sound nothing like Siri or Alexa or the voice telling you about the unexpected item in the bagging area of your supermarket checkout. They sound warm, natural, animated. With their advanced levels of realism, Apple's new AI voices present the genuine possibility that the listener will be unaware of their artificiality. Even the phrase used in Apple's catalogues of digitally-narrated audiobooks – "this is an Apple Books audiobook narrated by a digital voice based on a human narrator" – is ambiguous.

Apple's website says the feature is initially only available for romance and fiction books, where it lists two available digital voices: Madison and Jackson. The service is only available in English at present, and Apple is oddly specific about the genres of books its digital narrators are able to tackle. "Primary category must be romance or fiction (literary, historical, and women's fiction are eligible; mysteries and thrillers, and science fiction and fantasy are not currently supported)," its website reads.

I've been talking about AI narration for several years now, but it's just starting to go mainstream and I've been getting emails every day recently asking the same questions, so this is a round-up article with the most important information. For context, I am an audiobook narrator. I absolutely value human narrators, and I have spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring professional narrators for my novels and non-fiction over the last decade. I am also a futurist and I embrace AI tools as part of my creative and business practice. This episode is sponsored by my patrons at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. Thank you for enabling me to continue exploring the future of creativity and the author business model. You can find out lots more on how AI can help you create and earn more in my course on The AI-Assisted Author. You can find all my courses here on Teachable. I'd love to know what you think.