The ROI of every word: Why Voice AI is the next billion-dollar frontier

This time last year, voice was seen by many as a fun update to their product experience toolkit. Today, not even halfway through 2025, and it's become the cornerstone of growth strategies across a growing number of sectors. Early adopters in media have already demonstrated how voice AI can fundamentally transform business models, with others rapidly following suit.

The impact is already showing: media and entertainment is one of the top industries investing in Voice AI. From AI voiceovers to multilingual localisation, companies are using speech tech to streamline content creation and improve accessibility.

Recent reports show that AI dubbing and localisation tools are cutting production costs by up to 35%, especially for streaming and broadcast content.

What’s more, this tech is unlocking new engagement models. Broadcasters and content creators using Voice AI are accelerating time-to-air, personalising content, and expanding into new regions without increasing headcount.

As platforms scale multilingual output, audience reach and retention are becoming key benefits, with some startups reporting significant boosts to viewer engagement through automation and real-time voice personalisation.

AI Media is one of the companies leading this shift – a global voice AI powerhouse helping broadcasters and content owners scale multilingual, real-time audio experiences through automation.

In this first article in our three-part thought leadership series, Tony Abrahams – CEO and co-founder of AI Media – reveals why voice represents not just the future of content delivery, but the future of revenue models.

“We’ve always believed in the power of language. But what’s happening now with voice feels different. It’s not just a feature, it’s becoming the product.

People engage with voice a lot more than they engage with text. That’s not anecdotal – we’ve run the numbers, and we estimate that the market size for voice is around 20 to 30 times that of text.

It’s a completely different opportunity. We’re leaning into this shift with LEXI Voice – a product that delivers real-time multilingual voice commentary.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Customers can see the value immediately. They want to know: if I make my content available in-language, can I reach new audiences, and can I monetise them?

If the answer is yes, that’s a compelling proposition.

This is no longer just about translating words. It’s about delivering a full experience – with tone, energy, and relevance. 

There are audiences today who want Premier League coverage in Thai, or BBC content in Spanish. And they’re not being reached.

We’re helping solve that – not just with translation, but with live commentary overlays, delivered in a way that feels right for the format and the moment.

That includes new use cases like paralinguistics – capturing emotional tone, reacting to what’s happening in the content, and matching that in real time.

To support all this, LEXI Voice draws on best-in-class components – including Speechmatics, which powers the live speech recognition layer. 

“Its real-time accuracy and ability to integrate topic models means we can tailor output to different types of content with precision.

Whether that’s rugby, weather reports, or breaking news, we can adjust spelling, pacing, and context dynamically.

That’s critical for quality and our viewers notice.

We’re making it easy for broadcasters to plug this in without changing the way they already work. It connects into our infrastructure and runs frame by frame, second by second – so it feels seamless, not separate.

As these tools continue to improve, they’re not just going to support accessibility – they’re going to be embedded by default. The better they get, the more people will use them, and the more workflows they’ll naturally be part of.

We’re already seeing that happen. Since listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2020, we’ve scaled to deliver 120 times more content – with basically the same revenue base. 

That tells us where this is heading: toward live, AI-driven content, delivered in any language, with any voice, anywhere in the world.

That’s not a long-term vision. It’s already happening with voice creating space for new audiences and better content experiences. And that opens up a very real commercial future."

To learn more about AI-Media or to discuss how you can power your services with their next-gen products, contact the AI-Media Team.