Even with some of the backlash surrounding the AI Michael Caine-led audiobook of Homer’s “Odyssey” poem, it appears many listeners prefer an artificially generated voice to a human one.
A new Edison Research at SSRS study commissioned by Spoken, an AI audiobook company, revealed that the company’s multi-voice productions achieved a higher favorability rating than human-narrated productions.
The study, conducted in May 2026, is based on a survey of 1,005 fiction audiobook listeners split into two groups, each of which were made to listen to excerpts of either an AI-generated audiobook or a human-narrated one. During playback, the respondents didn’t know that AI voices were used, and they were not told which method was used for the production before they heard them.
Once they did know AI was involved, 61% rated Spoken’s Multi-Cast production — which generates a range of voices for a full audio production of a book, similar to, say, Audible’s full-cast production of the “Harry Potter” series — favorably, compared with 53% who said that about the human-narrated title. The study also showed the respondents ranked the AI version higher on perceived quality of narration (66% to 60%) and overall engagement (58% to 49%).
