Forum Discussion
AI text-to-speech voice inconsistencies?
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a Storyline project that includes a customer service interaction. For one of the characters, I'm using the Zoe voice from the voice library (described as charismatic, gritty, and engaging). However, when using the v3 voice model, the voice intermittently shifts between the expected delivery and what sounds like a completely different voice with a strong Southern U.S. accent and noticeably different cadence.
Occasionally, switching to v2.5 and then back to v3 temporarily resolves the issue, but the results are inconsistent. As a result, generating audio has become quite time-consuming and frustrating.
I'm curious whether this is a known issue with the v3 model and, if so, whether there is a workaround or planned fix. Additionally, are there other African American female voices available within Storyline that are considered stable, long-term options and less likely to be retired from the platform? The options seem to be quite limited from what I've seen.
Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
2 Replies
Hi kgalvin1,
Happy to help!
Sorry to hear that the AI voice, Zoe, didn't consistently produce the accent you were expecting for your Storyline narration.
We are aware of this behavior with the v3 model of Voiceover characters. While v3 is designed to be highly expressive and offer a wide emotional range, it's currently not optimized for voices with distinct accents. For the most reliable results with accented voices, we recommend using the Multilingual v2 model instead. For your reference, we've outlined how to switch between voice models here.
Also, we can't designate certain voices as "long-term" or guarantee that a specific voice will never be retired or changed. Voice availability may evolve over time, so we don't recommend one as being more permanent than another.
That said, feedback like yours helps us understand how authors are using these tools and where we can continue to improve them. I understand that you'd like to see additional African American female voice options. I've shared this request directly with our product team. Beyond Voiceover, are there other areas in Storyline where you feel cultural inclusivity is lacking for your use case?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Hi StevenBenassi, thank you so much for your response! Before posting this, I'd tried to use each of the voice models (Multilingual v2, 2.5, and 3) and didn't get the results I was looking for, unfortunately.
Regarding the longevity of voices, apologies - I should have been more clear in my original post. There are a couple of African American female voices in the expanded library, but all with the exception of Zoe have a 2-year retention plan if the voice actors revoke their content from Articulate. Zoe seems to not have that restriction, which is why I was wondering if there were other options that are owned by Articulate/don't run that risk that I might have more success with, since the Zoe voice is giving me trouble.
I really appreciate you sharing the request for more diverse/Black voices for future updates! I haven't come across any other notable examples of a lack of inclusivity, but I'm new to ID work, so I haven't had many opportunities to investigate. I'll be sure to update this thread if that changes.
Thank you again for your assistance!
