India’s star audio content company is going all in on AI. Will listeners tune in?

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses how the Indian audio-streaming platform Pocket FM is using artificial intelligence (AI) to drive its future growth, including partnering with the American text-to-speech AI startup ElevenLabs to convert scripts into audio. The article also covers concerns raised by some voice artists and digital technology experts about the potential misuse of voice samples and the impact of AI on the content creation industry.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Pocket FM's Partnership with ElevenLabs

1. What is the partnership between Pocket FM and ElevenLabs about?

• Pocket FM has partnered with ElevenLabs, a popular American text-to-speech AI startup, to convert scripts into audio.
• This allows Pocket FM's scriptwriters to convert their scripts into audio with one click, with an option to choose their preferred voice and background music, without having to hire voiceover artists and editors.
• This is the first partnership ElevenLabs has announced with an Indian company.

2. What are the benefits of this partnership for Pocket FM?

• The partnership with ElevenLabs will help Pocket FM convert scripts into high-quality audio programs at a quicker pace.
• This will help writers start their monetization faster and also help Pocket FM scale up faster in newer markets.
• Pocket FM claims the partnership has allowed them to produce an additional 5,000 shows during a six-month trial period and has reduced costs by 90%.

3. What are the concerns raised about this partnership?

• Some voice artists and digital technology experts in India have raised questions about the partnership, with concerns that Pocket FM may have surreptitiously used their voice samples to train AI models.
• There are concerns that the use of AI for creating audio content could lead to the replacement of voice artists.
• Some voice artists believe the voice samples they submitted for a Pocket FM contest may have been used for AI voice cloning, even though Pocket FM denies these allegations.

[02] Pocket FM's Business and Growth

1. What is Pocket FM's business model and growth?

• Pocket FM is an app that produces and streams fictional audio series, with a library of over 100,000 hours of content across 2,000 audio shows.
• Pocket FM's business model is based on a micropayments model, where users pay as little as 1 rupee or 30 cents per episode instead of buying a subscription.
• As of June 26, 2023, Pocket FM had been downloaded at least 189 million times worldwide and had $150 million in annual recurring revenue.
• The U.S. is Pocket FM's second-largest market after India, with 2.3 million users and over 85% of the company's revenue.

2. How has Pocket FM used AI in the past and future plans?

• Pocket FM has used AI in the past to improve audio quality, make personalized recommendations to listeners, and predict blockbusters.
• The partnership with ElevenLabs is seen as a natural next step to improve efficiency and cost savings through AI voice cloning.
• Pocket FM plans to expand the use of text-to-speech AI in more languages as it expands across Europe and Latin America.