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Welcome to the Friday edition of our newsletter. We spend Friday’s going deeper into tools and trends related to generative AI (and Tuesdays sharing news updates). This week we’re talking about AI audio tools.

We turned our attention to AI audio tools in our generative AI class at Drake University this week. It’s always interesting to explore the current state of AI tools for creating songs, cloning voices and more. But underlying the discussion this year is the reality that audio is going to play an important role in AI’s future.

Voice may soon be the preferred method for interacting with AI tools. AI is enabling a generation of highly realistic, human-like voices that are difficult to distinguish from real ones. Technologies like ElevenLabs are enabling instantaneous voice narration for content, while OpenAI (and several others) are developing models for voice-based hardware.

Even if we’re not talking directly to our AI tools (you should try voice mode in your favorite AI app if you haven’t already), AI tools are increasingly listening to us and learning from what they hear - whether in our Teams meetings or on our wrists.

AI is automating the creation of podcasts, audiobooks, and music, reducing the need for traditional, costly studios. Tools like NotebookLM have wowed us with the ability to convert written, complex documents into engaging, conversational audio summaries.

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Here’s a rundown of AI audio tools we discussed in class this week and that students will be integrating into assignments for the remainder of the semester.

There are a number of AI music tools worth testing out. Google recently added its music generation tool Lyria into its Gemini app, letting users create a 30-second song with a text or image prompt.

Lyria joins a list of AI music tools including MusicFX, MusicFX DJ and MusicAI Sandbox. MusicFX lets you create royalty-free music, AI beats, and songs from text. The DJ version lets you unleash your inner DJ and craft new beats. MusicAI Sandbox has more serious AI tools only available to musicians, including the ability to transform the mood, genre or style of an entire clip with AI.

For song creation including lyrics, Suno has long been a go-to in our AI workshops. Suno allows users to create full songs, including vocals and instrumentation, from text prompts. We used it to make this song in class last spring - and will work on a 2026 version next week.

Udio is a similar tool - an AI-powered music generation platform launched publicly in December 2023 by former Google DeepMind researchers.

ElevenLabs is an AI company that builds tools for generating and working with human-like voices. Its main focus is advanced speech synthesis — turning text into realistic spoken audio and creating custom AI voices. If you've ever listened to an audio version of an article on a website, that's likely ElevenLabs.

Murf is an AI voice generator that quickly creates high-quality voiceovers in multiple languages, offering over 120 realistic text-to-speech voices suitable for a range of applications.

Vocal Remover is a tool that separates voice and music into individual tracks.

Adobe Enhance Speech lets users improve the quality of recorded speech — whether muffled, reverberant, tinny, or full of artifacts — to a studio-grade, professional level, regardless of the original recording's clarity. It has been integrated into Adobe apps including Premiere Pro.

Deepgram is an AI platform specializing in voice AI, helping software understand, analyze, and generate human speech. Developers and companies use it to add voice features to apps, products, and services.

If you've never tried AI audio tools, it's worth at least testing ElevenLabs and Suno. But expect to see a significant increase in AI audio applications in the months and years to come.