The once popular real-time audio application Clubhouse recently announced that users can now send text messages to friends, and friends will hear these messages read out in the sender's custom voice.
In order to retain the decreasing number of users, Clubhouse has launched group voice chat functionality, where members can send asynchronous voice messages to each other, which will be presented in a format similar to Instagram stories.
According to the announcement, the company acknowledges that you may not be able to send voice messages anytime, anywhere. Therefore, you can train your own custom voice, send text messages, and your friends will hear the information read out in this reconstructed voice. When AI reads out the message, the app will display an indicator to your friends.
In a blog post, the company stated that this feature still retains the feeling of real-time chat with friends.
"Imagine sending a text message to a friend, but on the other end, they hear it as if you actually said it. Your custom voice makes speaking and typing or reading and listening feel seamless, so you never lose the feeling of being in a real-time conversation," the company said.
Clubhouse claims that even if you only use a few sentences to train the AI, it can reconstruct your voice to be very close to the original. The company stated that AI cannot reconstruct your laughter well (so maybe don't input "hahaha").
If you don't want to record your own voice, the company can also generate a voice for you. The company did not provide any details, but it is likely to be a text-to-speech model.
Currently, this feature is only available in the United States.
The usage of this application has decreased in the past few years. It was reported that the company was valued at $4 billion in its last funding round. The company has undergone several layoffs in the past few years. However, last year, the company claimed to have a few years of operating time left. Now, it is trying to make conversations between friends simpler using AI features, hoping that users will continue to use it.
It is worth noting that last year, Apple released a feature called "Personal Voice" that can create a voice that sounds like yours. This is particularly useful for people who may lose the ability to speak due to diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
