Instagram co-founders’ app will use AI to read news in celebrities’ voices

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, earlier this year, launched their new venture Artifact — a news app that delivers a personalised feed powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The app is now adding an AI-powered text-to-speech feature that will read you news articles in celebrities’ voices.

According to a report by The Verge, the company is offering this feature as part of a partnership with Speechify – which is a mobile and desktop app that reads text aloud using a computer-generated text-to-speech voice.

Artifact will read aloud news in the voice of Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow, who are among the voices that can read you the news. According to Robby Stein, Artifact’s head of product, there are more than 30 English voices available.

How to enable text-to-speech player
Users of the app will be able to turn on the text-to-speech player by tapping on a “play” icon at the bottom bar while reading an article. The player will then let them choose things like reading speed (up to 4.5x!) and which voice to hear.
The report said that the audio will keep playing in the background as the user explores other parts of Artifact or if they leave the app. The text-to-speech feature is initially rolling out to Apple iOS and will come to Android in the next few days.

How Artifact delivers news
Artifact brings news from a curated list of publishers, including The New York Times as well as small-scale blogs about niche topics. The app will feature a feed of popular articles just like the way videos are presented on Reels and TikTok. Once a user taps on an article that interests them, Artifact will prioritise similar posts and stories.
Since its launch, the app has got several features powered by artificial intelligence. These include the ability to summarise articles, explain it, and rewrite clickbaity headlines with the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model.