Artifact is getting an AI-powered text-to-speech feature to read you the news

Artifact is getting an AI-powered text-to-speech feature to read you the news

Artifact — the new-ish news app from Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger — is adding an AI-powered text-to-speech feature that will read you news articles.

The company is offering the new feature as part of a partnership with Speechify. Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow are among the voices that can read you the news, and if you want an idea of what that might sound like, you can hear their AI voices on Speechify’s website. There are more than 30 English voices available, according to Robby Stein, Artifact’s head of product.

To turn on the text-to-speech player, you can tap on a “play” icon you’ll see on the bottom bar while reading an article, and the player will let you choose things like reading speed (up to 4.5x!) and which voice to hear. The audio can keep playing in the background as you’re exploring other parts of Artifact or even if you leave the app.

The text-to-speech feature is available now on iOS and is coming soon to Android, Stein says. I’ve tried it for a few minutes in the iOS app, and the voices are just okay — you can tell they’re AI voices, but as a way to listen to text articles, they get the job done.

Artifact first launched in January and has steadily updated it in the months since. The app has a bunch of other features powered by artificial intelligence, including the ability to summarize articles and rewrite clickbait-y headlines.

Update July 27th, 2:33PM ET: Updated Stein’s title.

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