Spotify on Thursday introduced new AI tools powered by Eleven Labs for self-publishing audiobooks within the Spotify for Authors platform, alongside tools for AI-generated podcasts. The company announced at its Investor Day event that the feature will launch as an invite-only beta in June this year and will initially support English only.
With AI-powered audiobook generation, authors are not bound by exclusivity agreements and are free to publish their generated audiobooks anywhere.
The news builds on Spotify’s previous partnership with Eleven Labs, which allowed writers to submit audiobooks created on the voice AI startup’s platform to Spotify.
The audio streaming platform had also already partnered with Google Play Books to enable digitally narrated content. However, the author may have been hoping to have access to new voice models that are more expressive and human-sounding, such as those offered by Eleven Labs. Notably, Eleven Labs released its own self-publishing platform for authors in 2025.
Spotify also plans to expand its Spotify for Authors platform to support 10 more languages, including French, Canadian French, German, Dutch, Latin American Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Danish, and Norwegian.
Additionally, the company plans to expand its Audiobook+ plans this year to allow for higher listening limits and add new options for students and families in the future. (However, Spotify did not provide pricing or usage details for these plans in its announcement.)
To date, Spotify has logged over 1 million Audiobook+ subscriptions and is on track to generate $100 million in annual recurring revenue from the platform.
At the event, the company introduced a new way for users to use natural language to ask questions to discover audiobooks. This summer, Spotify will also expand the ability for users to create prompt-based playlists of podcasts and music, including audiobooks.
Spotify has increased its focus on audiobooks in recent years, successfully growing its catalog to 700,000 titles. The company introduced the program to international markets, invested in non-English titles, enabled in-app purchases, and released an audiobook chart. This year, it also launched a program for authors to sell physical books in the US and UK.
Through these efforts, the company claims it was able to increase listening time by 60% year-on-year. Spotify also said that more than half of its audiobook listeners started in the last year.
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