Audiobooks Are Becoming Audio Dramas Thanks to AI Voice Casting
Yandex Books has launched a new “By Roles” narration mode that turns books into multi-voice productions. The technology analyzes text, identifies character dialogue, and assigns different voices based on gender. The feature is already available for 2,500 books, with more titles planned in the future.
Audiobooks continue to gain popularity as listeners increasingly consume not only fiction but also professional and educational content. Today, the strongest-performing categories include fantasy, science fiction, detective novels, self-improvement, and psychology titles.
The Audiobook Boom by the Numbers
According to LitRes Group, audiobook revenue grew by 12.5% during the first three quarters of 2025, while e-book revenue increased by 8%. The digital book market expanded by 25% in 2024. Growth for 2025 is projected at roughly 22%, while analysts expect the market to grow by 19% to 20% in 2026.
According to LitRes Editor-in-Chief Ekaterina Pisareva, 32 of the top 50 best-performing titles on the platform by revenue are audiobooks. For Alpina Publishing Group, audiobooks generate 62% of digital-book revenue despite accounting for only 37% of its digital catalog.
Taken together, the numbers suggest that audio is one of the publishing industry's most promising formats, and competition for listeners is already intensifying. High-quality narration remains a key differentiator. Today, that increasingly includes giving different characters distinct voices. While such productions once required professional actors, artificial intelligence can now perform much of that work.
Different Characters, Different Voices
According to Yandex Books, one in ten subscribers regularly uses its virtual narrator. The system has long supported different narration modes, including male-only and female-only voices. It can now perform dialogue using multiple voices within the same book.
The new By Roles mode is built on Yandex’s speech-synthesis technology. The system analyzes text, identifies character dialogue, and assigns different voices according to gender. As a result, conversations sound more natural and listeners can distinguish characters by ear. “The narrator takes character gender into account: a woman’s dialogue is voiced with a female voice, while a man’s dialogue is voiced with a male voice,” Yandex's experts said.
One of the technology’s biggest advantages is the ability to expand audiobook catalogs without the cost of producing a full studio recording for every title. That is particularly important for niche literature, educational materials, emerging authors, and books with limited commercial potential.
The accessibility impact is equally significant. Audio editions make books more accessible to blind and visually impaired users, among others. For that reason, the audiobook format is likely to continue expanding, while new technologies are expected to intensify competition among digital book platforms.
Competition for the Listener
The launch of By Roles marks another step in Yandex Books’ evolution from a conventional reading and listening service into an intelligent media platform, where AI does more than convert text into speech and can also convey elements of a character’s identity and personality.
The new capabilities are designed to attract readers who want more than a single, monotonous narrator. Instead, they offer dynamic dialogue that turns listening into something closer to an audio drama. Future development is expected to focus on making voices sound more natural and matching them not only to gender but also to age and other character traits.
Beyond its emotional appeal, the technology could accelerate audiobook production and lower the barrier to creating audio editions of books that previously could not justify the cost of professional recording.
Over the next several years, competition among Yandex Books, LitRes, MTS Stroki, and other digital-book services is likely to center on the quality of AI-generated narration. Natural-sounding voices, emotional dialogue delivery, and a wider range of character vocal profiles are expected to become key competitive advantages.
Industry experts believe professional actor narration will remain a premium offering, while AI-generated narration becomes the mass-market standard for expanding audiobook catalogs.
