Carel: Rolf Veldman, CEO of Voice123.

Welcome.

It's both apt and inevitable that you'd be a guest on AV123.

2024 has been a tumultuous year to say the least.

And the tsunami that is artificial intelligence has left few industries untouched, but has certainly profoundly impacted the creative industry and the voiceover industry in particular.

Now, as a first question, what is your assessment of what's been happening and how is Voice123 dealing with it?

Rolf: Well, first of all, Carel, thanks for having me on the podcast.

I know it's Voice123 interviewing Voice123, but it's nice to talk to you in this setting.

So it's a big question to start off with.

So, even though AI, I think is accelerated in the last two years, it's been on our mind and it's been in our plans for the last maybe eight years already.

I joined in 2016.

I remember that being the first conversation I ever had with the board of directors, like what is AI going to do?

So we've been figuring out our vision for AI in the voiceover industry, let's call it audio industry as a whole.

And at first we were afraid.

We thought there's going to be a shutterstock of AI and all the humans are going to be replaced.

But thankfully it tends to lastly replace art.

And the thing that AI does is, it looks for efficiencies.

And we've seen that the last couple of years, more and more and more.

We've seen the last couple of years that AI is not necessarily replacing people, but working with people.

So that has been the most exciting part of the AI introduction in an ecosystem like Voice123.

Our whole vision is the future of content can only survive if there's ownership with the right people.

And in this case, that's the artist.

So our goal has been, okay, how can we integrate AI into the voice over industry while keeping the people who are creative at the front of it and so what we've been trying to do is what we do best is build relationships between the people who need voiceover for the audio project and the voice actors and we're trying to get the voice actors to offer AI services that's sort of the approach that we've taken because we realized that.

AI is fun for a couple of projects, but in the end you have to work with the people behind the AI, and then AI becomes just a tool on, on a voice actor's belt.

So it's our mission to, to keep that intact.

Carel: Interestingly, in a number of interviews that we've conducted since the beginning of AV123 is the question of authenticity.

Clients are of the opinion that if you have anything to do with AI, you're being unauthentic.

If you're using real life people, it's authentic.

But I think it's far more of a gray area than that.

How would you, from Voice123's viewpoint, define authenticity?

Rolf: I think, especially in the entertainment industry and when talking about AI, you need to add two more words to authenticity.

Like, one is consent.

And I think when it comes to AI, it's consent of using one's AI models, so to speak, whether you're working with a writer or designer or voice actors.

If you use AI with the consent of the artist, it sort of amplifies the whole authentic experience.

So I think that's a very important part of it.

If you, if you take AI voices and you make them sound authentic, it is by definition not authentic, but if you collaborate with an artist with their consent.

It gets close to the level of authenticity.

And I would say the second definition that you need to add to authenticity when thinking about AI is perhaps transparency or honesty, and that has more to do with the fact that people don't want to be duped and that's more talking about the audience themselves.

If you tell an audience this is AI generated, they'll be impressed.

If they figure out it is AI generated, they'll be annoyed.

So when it comes to authenticity, I think connecting those two dots of consent and a sense of realism and transparency in when and how you use it paves the way for use of AI in a way that the audience likes it.

The artist likes it.

And there's still like a speed and efficiency being created for people who need to move fast and need to create a lot of content.

If you do those things, I think there, there's room for AI and it's not necessarily excluded from the authentic realm.

I know you can go all, all different directions with this discussion, but I think those two are fundamental because in every creative relationship, it's between people and, and it's already hard enough as it is to convince people to sell your ad or to create a convincing ad let alone by using AI.

So I think if realism and authenticity and, and honesty shines through, I think you can use it.

Carel: When the AI tsunami first struck a veritable choir of global creatives leapt up on every conceivable social media stage yelling, we're all gonna die.

But that doesn't seem to have happened.

Why not?

Rolf: No, but like, I don't want to be a, a naive optimist.

I think there is like, if I was in charge of an an ad budget, which are always tight, I'm, I'm looking for ways to make it cheaper.

Right?

And it's that driving force that, that, that pushes AI further into the entertainment industry.

But it's short term thinking.

Cause in the end there's two waves happening at the same time.

One is, okay, there's this whole new technology coming out.

How do we use it?

It's like the great unknown at this moment it's going to, it's going to completely replace certain items.

It's going to be integrated.

We can look back at changes like introduction of CGI in, in movies or even, even computers compared to paper.

Like it's a big fundamental shift in the end it's, again, it's people working with people.

But the other like parallel flow that's happening right now is, is particularly in Europe and, and by extension also in North America is the drive towards more ownership and more rights for the creative artists.

And if you just look ahead of the next 2 to 3 years.

If you're banking on as a audio creator or as a seller of audio, if you're only thinking about AI, it's going to be tricky because there's going to be more and more legal frameworks in place that force you to share the, going back to the previous topic, how authentic is the audio that you're using?

How authentic is the content that you're using?

And it puts creators in a more powerful position than ever before.

And some of the companies that have switched to AI, we've seen it on our platform as well, have come back, not that they no longer use AI, but they also use people, right?

So, we adopt the 80-20 rule in Voice123.

Like, it's not something we thought of, but it's something that we see in the people that leverage AI.

We see that some clients, they we call them clients on Voice123, they used 80 percent of AI when fulfilling a project, but they need 20 percent of the project to be done by the actual person.

Right?

Maybe the more creative part or a more convincing part, or maybe it's just one of those words that even how good AI is, it still cannot do it.

And it's just faster to have the person on speed dial.

It is wild to imagine on a site like Voice123 that people are so fast in auditioning that sometimes our client thinks, Hey, this must be AI.

No, people are just really fast and really good at what they do.

Like sometimes it's just faster to work with a person.

And the other way around is also true where you want to have the full creative person with experience in a studio.

That's the 80%.

But there's a lot of pickups, or there's a lot of post production happening where getting the person back in the studio or back on a call is inconvenient.

So that's where AI works.

But for that to work over time, it means that you need to work with the person and the AI version of that person.

So yet again, if you're only buying AI, then sort of, we see these clients bumping their heads into problems saying, I now have to also hire a person and have to redo the work.

Well, if you start from the get go by working with voice actors who have AI models, you're sort of mixing all the best of all the world.

So, right now there's a hype.

Everybody likes to do AI right now.

I think once the dust settles, it will be another way to do audio content and that voice actors will have to manage and the client will have to manage.

Carel: Interesting point.

And also with direct reference to authenticity, what ethical consideration is Voice123 prioritizing to ensure fairness to voice actors?

Rolf: Fairness to voice actors.

So we're trying to work with a number of institutions, not just the union, but other voice actor interest groups to help come up with like a legal framework that allows voice actors and clients to work on templates that sort of protect both sides.

Because it's not just a voice actor problem, it's also from the people who buy the voice over.

They're trying to now circumvent the the problem by doing full buyouts, for example, but I'm sure that's going to be illegal in the next couple of years, especially in the realm of data.

So legal framework in terms of services that protect both sides, I think is a big one.

And what we're trying to do specifically on Voice123 is that we have followed Adobe's example of trying to make sure that we sign and track every single piece of audio file that gets exchanged between people.

So there's never uncertainty about where the original piece came from or whether the original piece was a person or generated by AI.

We do it by an authenticity program that we have in our own website and we've even gotten to a position where we can ID whether or not it's your voice.

We already had a case two weeks ago, a voice actor's saying, I think a person is using my voice.

We put it into our system and we can conclusively say, okay, no, this is another person, but everybody was settled because of it.

It's those kinds of measures that are put on top of a legal framework that help both sides transact audio in a way that protects both.

That's sort of our role in the voiceover industry as well.

Like we don't want to be owners.

We want to be, still want to be matchmakers.

And so the only way to stay present and to stay at the front of the matchmaking part of voiceover, we have to put in these extra measures of security and safety.

Carel: You mentioned the whole concept of matchmaking, but how is Voice123 integrating AI technologies into the platform, specifically to improve the matchmaking process between voice actors and clients, and what do you see as Voice123's long-term strategic goals with AI?

Rolf: Two big questions.

Again, I think the fact I'm most proud of right now is that in an era where AI is replacing a lot of people, we keep hiring more customer support staff.

'cause we know more than ever you want to talk to a person.

So in our day-to-day, and even in the the algorithms that we use to match people, there's not necessarily AI in there.

Our system remains fundamentally the same place where you can post a project, get booked.

We have a studio version where you can vet to curate voice actor talent and just purchase the voiceover directly that like the core fundamental stay the same, but where we, where we add AI is in currently is in two places.

And I think for the foreseeable future, that's where we're going with.

So there's a version of the Voice123 search where you can already enable AI, as a person who seeks voiceover, post the script auditions get generated and you can use it as a way to get an instant addition so to speak and then either buy the the end product or hire the person directly.

But Voice123 just enables that.

These are all voice actors that have their own AI model with their own company, and we just expose it on our network and then a lot of clients and voice actors build a relationship and most likely take it offline.

So again our goal is adopt any tools similar to how a lot of voice actors out there and audio professionals use a tool like source connect to call into a studio.

We see the same application for AI where there is an AI model on Voice123 connected to a voice actor that you as a buyer can sort of unlock and then you can use it and everybody sees how much is being used and you can come to agreement with the payment structure that you prefer.

But our role as Voice123 is okay.

how can we expose that in a way that is ethical, that is safe and amplifies the creative relationship?

Those are drivers more so than tactics like these are pillars that move us forward.

Carel: Would you say it's fair given what you just said that you are suggesting or at least you are recommending that I use is both voice actors on the one hand and clients on the other actually see artificial intelligence as a tool, as opposed to something that replaces a voice actor?

Rolf: Yes, but again with the with the risk of sounding too naive so I don't wanna say go out there and and get any model from any company like vet, vet the companies that you're working with.

The volume of people that post job and a volume of people that offer their voice over services, the amount of people that already use some form of AI in that process, whether it's in the audition, whether it's in a post production, you can see it's already becoming almost like a fundamental need that people need to have not being pushed by a company like Voice123 per se, but just by industry dynamics between voice actors and the buyers of the voice actor performances.

So it would be, if I was a voice actor right now, I would look to an organization like NAVA and

Carel: NAVA being just for those who might not know?

Rolf: That's a National Association of Voice Actors.

It's one of those organizations that is not for profit, but helps like keep the industry in check and they will give recommendations on already what kind of legal frameworks to use, but also like which kind of companies you should not build an AI product with or which companies you should build.

So, if I was a voice actor, I would already start to look or have to have one of these AI models that I own, that I can control, that I can give access to to a client under certain conditions, because the most insecure part between in voiceover is that initial contact.

That's where people have to still get to know each other, but once you maybe work together once or twice, and it tends to be the case that you keep hiring the same kind of voice actor over time, maybe that's a moment where you give access to an AI model as a voice actor, and then as a client, you can use it at your own expense and pay for the usage, of course, and I think that allows for the best of all the worlds.

It gets sped up from the people who need to deliver audio fast, it frees up time for the voice actor as well to do more craft work rather than repetitive work.

I think there's an efficiency there that definitely is going to be solved.

And there's all these new type of content as well.

Right.

There are now more audio books than ever.

That's not because there are more voice actors.

That's because of AI.

Right.

I think two, three years ago, maybe five or 10 percent of all, all books turn into an audio book.

I mean, within the next five years, a hundred percent of the books will turn into an audio book.

The difference between being, or maybe a really well performed audio book with multiple actors, which I see audio book going towards regardless, rather than the single narrative reader.

And, and maybe just the placeholder AI version that still allows you to have an audio book.

So there's new content being created.

And there is even in the existing relationship between voice actors and clients, there's still plenty of space for AI to help both sides.

But yes, I would say get a model.

Carel: Rolf, you're a historian academically.

So in closing, let me ask you this.

If you were to risk being a futurist and you draw the rapid evolution of AI into your prediction equation, where is filmmaking, video making, and voiceover going to be in five years?

Rolf: So I think lesson one in history class was don't predict the future.

Look at the past, leave the future to the economists.

They're always wrong, but let me dive into it anyway.

So it, it changes so fast that this might be outdated in, in two or three weeks, but the underlying pillars that I mentioned before about ownership and about audiences are I think what is going to drive not just audio, but also video in general, including movies like the joint experience of us seeing the same TV program or seeing even the same social media video is all completely gone away all.

All videos now have 2 million views instead of that one, 1 billion view video, right?

We're all segment, we're all segmented into our different niche and our different audio space with our own bubble.

And it's hard to get out.

So I'm, viewing completely different content than you.

I'm viewing completely different content than my wife, right?

It's so specific.

And I, there's all these small communities, which for the people who create content, they need to reach so many people.

And they cannot do it by a single media.

So, if we're looking five years ahead, I think the companies that survive are able to not try to pitch to everybody, but really segment their audience that they want to reach and go hard after them.

But also I think that us as an audience will have more control over the type of content.

There's a thing like dynamic audio advertising.

There's already the generative part of AI allows us as an audience to also reconfigure the content that we're watching.

I believe that we'll get to a place where if I don't like the ending of my Netflix show, I get to regenerate a different ending.

And the same for, for advertising.

It's almost needs to have a model approach where I, as the audience interact with what I'm listening to and interact with what I'm seeing and make my decisions based on that.

So if I was in the creative industry right now, I would be like, very excited about all the different forms of content that you get to try in the next couple of years.

Because God knows what's going to happen.

As long as we do it in a safe and transparent nature and we make sure that everybody in the process is rewarded.

I think it's going to be an amazing couple of years.

Carel: I think that's the best conceivable spot to end this interview.

Rolf Veldman, CEO of Voice123, thank you very much for joining us on AV123.

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