Clubhouse, the once-popular streaming audio app, announced today that users can now send text messages to their friends and will hear those messages in the sender's personalized voice.
In a bid to stay relevant amid user declines, Clubhouse introduced group voice chats where members can send asynchronous voice messages to each other and would appear in a format like Instagram Stories.
With today's announcement, the company acknowledges that they may not be able to send voice messages to each other. So you can train your personalized voice, send text messages and your friends will hear the message in the recreated voice. The app shows an indicator to your friends when the AI voice is reading a message.
Image credits: clubhouse
In a blog postThe company said this feature still retains the feeling of being in a real-time chat with a friend.
“Imagine that you send a text message to a friend, but on the other end they hear your words as if you had really said them. Your personalized voice makes speaking, writing, or reading and listening feel seamless so you never lose the feeling of being in a live conversation,” the company said.
Clubhouse claims that its AI is capable of recreating your voice close to the original even when you train it by reading just a few sentences. The company said the AI can't recreate your laugh well (so maybe don't write lol).
Image credits: clubhouse
The company can also generate a voice on your own if you are not comfortable recording your voice. The startup did not specify any details, but it would likely be a text-to-speech model.
This feature is currently only available in the US at the moment.
Use of the app has decreased in recent years. The last time he raised a round was a valuation reportedly of $4 billion. In recent years it has had several layoffs. But last year, the company claimed to have There are a few years of track left.. It is now experimenting with AI-powered features to facilitate conversations between friends, in the hope that users will stick around.
In particular, last year, Apple launched a feature called Personal Voice, which creates a voice that sounds like you. This is particularly useful for people who may be at risk of losing their ability to speak due to diseases such as ALS.