Combining human narration and AI tools to tell stories, preserve knowledge and make audio production easier and more accessible.

What would it take to turn millions of words into hundreds of hours of audio? This fall and winter, we’re working on finding out.

This fall and winter, our program is developing new ways to produce, organize and share spoken-word content, combining human narration with AI-assisted tools. Both have a place in this work. Human voices bring interpretation, personality, emotion and the character of a particular performance. AI narration offers another option for projects involving large volumes of text, where recording everything by hand may not be practical.

We’re interested in how these approaches can work alongside one another, helping us produce more audio while keeping creative decisions, quality and the intended audience at the centre of the process.

Developing Tools for Long-Form Audio Production

Recording a short passage is one thing. Producing hours of audio from a lengthy document or an entire collection of writing is another.

Human narration remains central to many audio projects. A narrator can make deliberate choices about tone, rhythm, emphasis and character, bringing a text to life in ways that matter to the listener. For stories, performances and other work where the voice is part of the artistic expression, that human contribution is essential.

At the same time, some projects involve so much written material that recording every word individually becomes a significant undertaking. We figure we have about 40-50,000 minutes of content to read in our archives! This is where AI-assisted narration can help. It gives us another way to approach certain texts, test different production methods and work with material that might otherwise remain in written form.

There are technical challenges, too. Long documents need to be divided into manageable sections, recordings must be assembled, and pacing, pronunciation, pauses and transitions all affect the result. Producing audio at scale requires more than generating a voice; it takes a workable production process.

We’re experimenting with these different approaches, identifying where each is useful and refining the tools and workflows as we go.

Community Archiving Through Audio and Digital Storytelling

Written material can hold years of stories, research, local knowledge and creative work. But a document sitting on a hard drive isn’t necessarily easy for people to access or use.

Audio creates another way to engage with that material. Human-narrated recordings can bring a writer’s work to life through a distinctive voice and interpretation. AI-assisted narration may offer a practical alternative for selected documents, larger collections or material that would be difficult to record in full using conventional methods.

Neither approach is right for every project. Some writing calls for a human performance; other material may benefit from a straightforward spoken version. The important thing is having options and making informed choices about how a story or document should be presented.

For community organizations and independent creators, these possibilities are worth investigating. Audio can help preserve material, provide alternative ways to access written content and give existing work new uses and audiences.

We’re interested in how narration and audio production might support community-driven archiving, digital storytelling and the sharing of knowledge between people and places.

Creative Entrepreneurship: Building the Tools We Need

Creative work increasingly involves more than making the work itself. Artists and small organizations also have to manage production, distribution, technical infrastructure and ongoing costs.

Building our own tools helps us understand those demands and gain more control over the process. Rather than relying entirely on ready-made services, we can experiment with different workflows, adapt them to our needs and develop practical skills along the way.

This includes understanding when human recording is worth the additional time and effort, when AI-assisted narration might be appropriate, and how the two can fit into a broader production process. The decisions involve artistic intent, accessibility, quality, cost and the needs of the people who will listen.

This is part of creative entrepreneurship: identifying a problem, developing possible solutions, testing the results and deciding what is worth improving. The outcome might be a useful tool, a repeatable production process or a clearer understanding of what a project requires.

For a small creative program, these are practical questions. How can we make more audio without losing sight of the quality of the work? Which tasks can be made easier? Where does human attention make the greatest difference? And how can we keep production manageable over the long term?

Digital Literacy Through Hands-On Experimentation

There’s a difference between using a finished application and understanding how to build or adapt one.

Working with human narration, audio processing and AI-assisted production gives us a chance to examine the decisions behind the finished recording. We can test different approaches, work with audio files, adjust production steps and hear how individual choices affect the result.

That practical experience builds digital literacy through doing. It encourages us to ask how a tool works, what its limitations are, what it does well and whether it can be adapted to a particular creative purpose.

It also reminds us that technology is a means rather than an end. A useful tool should serve the work, not dictate how the work has to be made. Sometimes the right choice is a human narrator. Sometimes an AI-assisted workflow can help with a particular task. Sometimes a combination makes the most sense.

And there is a creative pleasure in the experimentation itself: starting with an idea, working through the technical problems and hearing the results take shape.

What’s Next for Our Audio Production Work?

Our work will continue through the fall and winter as we test narration methods, improve our tools and consider how they might be used in different settings.

Potential applications include narrated scripts, educational materials, digital exhibitions, audiobooks and audio versions of selected written or archival collections. Some may call for a human performance; others may be suited to AI-assisted narration or a combination of methods.

We’re approaching this as an ongoing project rather than a finished product. There will be more to test, more to improve and more to learn by putting the tools to work.

The broader idea is straightforward: we want to build practical ways to make creative work, preserve stories and share knowledge. Human voices will continue to matter. New technologies can help us tackle some of the work that would otherwise be difficult to produce at scale.