BotTalk is one of the winner of the 2021 edition of ContentShift, the accelerator for startups launched by Börsenverein and dedicated to fostering innovation in the content industry.

Aldus Up takes this occasion to get to know its potential with this business case.

An innovative Text-to-Speech solution for Publishers

BotTalk is an innovative ScaleUp and built a SaaS platform, which can automatically audify all types of articles within seconds, providing publishers with a new and engaging way to reach their audience. Additionally, BotTalk specializes in developing AI voices for businesses, being its mission is to help organizations in leveraging the power of AI to create more engaging, personalized, and intuitive experiences for their users.

Bottalk’s commitment to innovation and excellence has not gone unnoticed in the industry. In 2022, the company was selected as one of the top 10 startups in the Contentshift programme, a prestigious startup accelerator program for the digital content industry. The award recognized Bottalk’s potential to disrupt the Text-to-Speech market and its commitment to delivering exceptional value to its customers.

Business Needs

Over the past few years, the demand for audio content has been on the rise. According to the Audible Hörkompass 2021, the growth trend in audiobooks and podcasts is showing no signs of slowing down. In 2017, only 22% of Germans listened to audio content, but in 2021, that number has increased to 42%. Moreover, people already spend a lot of time listening to podcasts, with an average of 6 hours and 39 minutes per week, according to Spotify.

However, there is a missing supply for audio content in the news services. One of the main reasons is the high production costs and time required for human speakers. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to record and produce high-quality audio content, making it a challenge for businesses and individuals to keep up with the demand.

This means that a significant amount of information cannot be consumed “on the go” and is only available in a text-based format, which can be challenging for visually impaired people or people with busy schedules who prefer to consume content while they are commuting or engaging in other activities.

Solution

Text-to-speech technology, such as that offered by BotTalk, can automatically audify articles, making it easier for news publishers to reach their audience with audio content.

One of the most significant benefits of BotTalk’s SaaS platform is its easy integration. With just one line of code, publishers can add high-quality audio content to their website, mobile app, or other digital platforms, making it easier than ever to reach their audience with audio content.

BotTalk’s SaaS platform also offers a unique feature that can save you up to 40% on text-to-speech costs. The platform’s “update minimizer” minimizes the number of updates required to maintain high-quality audio content, saving publishers’ time and money.

To improve the accuracy and pronunciation of their synthetic voices, BotTalk has created dictionaries with over 20,000 words and 10,000 linguistic rules. This allows the platform to recognize and pronounce even the most complex words and phrases accurately, ensuring that your audience receives the most accurate and engaging audio content possible.

With its unique know-how in text-to-speech for publishers, BotTalk’s SaaS platform also offers paywall integration, playlist players, and audio ads insertion, enabling a range of solutions for monetizing audio content. The platform integrates with a wide range of content management systems, allowing publishers to automate the audification process and save time on manual transfer.

Unlike other text-to-speech providers, BotTalk offers a unique service that allows publishers to create their own branded synthetic voices using voice cloning technology. This feature can be a game-changer for news publishers, as it offers a more personalized and recognizable experience for their audience. With BotTalk’s platform, publishers can create a distinct voice that reflects their brand’s tone and personality, adding a new level of authenticity to their content.

The role of technology

One of the most challenging technological innovation addressed by the BotTalk team is the creation of the most human-sounding possible synthetic voices. To achieve this, the team used the state-of-the-art deep learning techniques that allow to create voices that are indistinguishable from human speech. By using these techniques, BotTalk is able to provide a personalized and engaging experience to users, making it easier than ever to consume content through audio.

In addition to creating the most human-sounding possible synthetic voices, the technology team is also focused on making BotTalk solution as easy to use as possible. To this end, the team developed one-line-of-code integration for BotTalk text-to-speech solutions into customers’ existing workflows and platforms. This makes it easy for publishers to add high-quality audio content to their websites, mobile apps, and other digital platforms, allowing them to reach their audience more effectively.

Results

BotTalk is working together with leading publishers in Germany, Belgium, Ireland and Netherlands like Funke Group, VRM, VRT and Mediahuis. BotTalk’s platform has already proven to be a hit with publishers, with a click rate of 10% on their web player and a listen-through rate of 75%. These impressive statistics demonstrate the effectiveness of BotTalk’s technology in engaging audiences and providing a more convenient way to consume news.

By staying at the forefront of technology, BotTalk aims at creating solutions that are not only cutting-edge but also easy to use and highly effective for customers such as publishers looking to monetize their audio content or other organisations looking to engage their audience with high-quality audio content.

Overall, BotTalk aims to be a game-changer for news publishers looking to leverage the power of text-to-speech technology. With BotTalk, publishers can create a more engaging and accessible experience for their audience while saving time and resources.

→ You can find BotTalk here: https://bottalk.io/