Now You Can Narrate Your Friend’s Lives Like Morgan Freeman With Augmented Voice

The Voicemod app is PC-only, though the company said it is working on a Mac version. The 24-hour beta trial is available from the company’s website after filling out an access form.

In a release announcing the new feature, Voicemod said the technology is especially useful for streamers, content creators, roleplayers, or even for people in the trans community trying to express themselves online. The company quoted streamer and esports coach/organizer Kairi Caitlyn, who said further development of AI voices could be a benefit to “people like me in the trans community.”

It means the masculine “Bob” and feminine “Alice” voices are perhaps the most interesting, and potentially consequential for people trying to express their identities when appearing online. Other startups are also working on AI technology that facilitates the trans community online. Many of these companies, including Voicemod, refer to the nebulous “metaverse” when describing how this technology could be used to create personalized avatars. As much as companies like Meta want to let you recreate yourself in a virtual world, others would prefer to express their inner selves when creating online personas.

CEO and co-founder Jaime Bosch wrote that the tech “enables a previously impossible level of customization in audio expression online and in the metaverse.” In a statement to Gizmodo, Bosch said they want to support the full slate of trans, nonbinary, gender-fluid, and gender-queer users to “better empower them to build their own unique sonic identities.”

The flip side of this technology is the potential for abuse. The rise of deepfake technology has some in the political and tech worlds concerned, though deepfakes still have a long way to go if they want to be more effective than good old fashioned online disinformation. These most recent speech-to-speech systems are not likely to fool most people, but even Voicemod recognized that security is a concern. Bosch said they are working on systems to identify whether somebody is using a synthetic voice.