Spotify announced an AI tool that will let authors generate narrated audiobooks directly within its Spotify for Authors platform, revealing the feature at its Investor Day event and opening an invite‑only beta in June. The tool uses voice models from ElevenLabs to produce narrated content and initially supports English‑language production. This adds a native option for creators to move from manuscript to audio without using separate production services.
The company stressed that authors who use the AI generator will not be locked into exclusive distribution with Spotify and may publish those generated audiobooks elsewhere. The new capability builds on an existing collaboration that already allowed authors to submit ElevenLabs‑produced titles to Spotify, but integrates the generation step into Spotify’s author tools. Spotify is also expanding the Spotify for Authors product with support for ten additional languages: French, Canadian French, German, Dutch, Latin American Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian. The rollout complements earlier moves, including a partnership with Google Play Books to enable digitally narrated content, and signals a push into broader international and non‑English audiobook offerings.
On the commercial side, Spotify said it will broaden its Audiobook+ subscription plans this year to allow higher listening limits and will introduce new plan options aimed at students and families. The company did not disclose pricing or specific usage tiers in the announcement, framing the changes as part of an effort to make audiobooks more accessible to different listener segments.
Spotify provided concrete usage and catalog metrics tied to the effort: its audiobook catalog stands at roughly 700,000 titles and the company has recorded more than one million Audiobook+ subscriptions to date. Spotify said the audiobook business is on track for about $100 million in annualized recurring revenue, listening hours for audiobooks rose roughly 60% year‑over‑year, and more than half of current audiobook listeners started in the past year.
To improve discovery and user experience, Spotify introduced a natural‑language Q&A feature for finding audiobooks and plans to extend its prompt‑based playlist creation tools this summer so users can include audiobooks alongside music and podcasts. The company has also begun programs allowing authors to sell physical books in the U.S. and U.K., emphasizing a multi‑format approach to supporting creators.
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