Transcript for "For the Record: AI Isn't Replacing You. It Needs You": Welcome, everyone. I'm Juliana Jones, director of Talent Success at Voices. And today, I'm your host and moderator for For the Record. AI isn't replacing you, it needs you. I wanna start by saying something directly. We know this topic brings up real feelings. Before you registered tonight, we asked you one question. What's your biggest question about AI voice work? And you told us. Over 62% of you submitted a question and the themes were clear. You wanna know if your voice is safe, you wanna know if the money is real, and you wanna know if this is the beginning of something or the end. This webinar is about real answers from three voice actors who have done this work, navigated these questions, and are here to tell you what they actually found. In our pre event survey, 58% of you told us you've never applied for an AI voice job on voices, and 21% of you said you applied but never heard back. Here is what I want you to know going into this panel. The most common reason talents aren't landing AI jobs comes down to executing on the brief. That is a learnable skill, and it is one of the things we're going to give you tools for today. On the agenda for today's panel, we are going to walk through five myths. And by the end of the panel, you'll walk away with a clear understanding of how AI jobs work, what makes a strong submission, and exactly where to start. Now without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce our panelists, Michael Kaplan. Michael is a Telly award winning voice actor and producer who's been in this industry since he was 11 years old. Over 1,400 projects later, he knows what it takes to stay competitive when the industry shifts. He's going to tell us exactly how AI voice fits into that picture. Victoria Lynn Carol. Victoria is a full time voice actress and filmmaker with nearly a decade in the industry. Her credits include national campaigns for some companies like Apple, Google, BMW, Coca Cola, plus AAA video games. She's here to give us a real world perspective on what it looks like to build a lasting career alongside evolving technology. And finally, Jeffrey Armour. Jeffrey is an actor, director, and multidisciplinary artist with thirty years of consistent voice work across theater stages at home and around the world. In just the last six months, he's recorded almost twenty hours of AI dataset material across two companies, which makes him one of the most candid practical voices in the room on what that entry point actually looks like. Alright. Right now, I wanna go straight into what you told us was on your mind. We asked you one question when you registered. What's your biggest question about AI voice work? And one theme came through louder than anything else, the fear that AI is going to replace you. And I'm not gonna gloss over that because that fear comes from a real place. So let's talk about what's actually happening in the industry because I think a lot of you have felt it and not enough people are saying it out loud. Some traditional jobs have changed. Work that used to come in consistently looks different now. Budgets have shifted. Some clients who used to hire human talent are making different choices. And if you're feeling that in your career right now, if that gap is real for you today, you are not wrong. It is happening, and we see it. Here's where we stand at voices. We are not here to pretend that the shift isn't real. We are here to help you move with it. Not because AI voice work is perfect or because every job is right for every person, but because we want you to understand the space well enough to decide for yourself, just like our panelists did. And that choice opened doors for them that hadn't existed before. The mindset sip the mindset shift we're talking about today isn't give up what you've built. It's if the industry is moving, move with it. Use what you already have. Fill the gap. Add a new income stream alongside the work you're already doing like our panelists have done. And that's what today is about, not replacing your career, adding to it. And we wanna give you the insights, the tools, and the knowledge to feel confident enough to take that first step. But I don't want you to just take my word for it. Michael, before you first applied to an AI job, you were skeptical. What worried you the most, and what actually happened when you took the lead? Go ahead, Michael. I can't hear you. Sorry. I thought once I went to this stage it would, I'm here now. Hi, Juliana. Hello. So it it's a good question. I I think by the time that I had already gotten to the point at which I was doing a job in the AI space, I was no longer skeptical actually at that point. I think the point at which I was skeptical was when all of this kinda started and the advent of. So two and a half years ago when all this stuff was really starting to pop off and everybody was scared and nobody knew what was gonna happen or where this was gonna go or what it meant, the thing that kind of caused me to take the leap was I I had this I had a conversation with my father who's also a voice actor and been in this industry for fifteen years, and we kinda had this come to God moment of, like, there's no way to fight this. So it's either you accept it and work with it and utilize it as a tool, or you do let it kind of drown you and you get lost in it. And we decided we wanted to learn about this new thing that was coming, and it was coming no matter what, and and in every industry. And there's a way, I think, to make it work for you. So that that mindset shift helped me move with confidence into my first AI job. And it's it's new and exciting, but new and exciting and unknown. And when it's unknown, it's scary, so I understand everybody's fear around it. But for me, it was definitely something I I moved out of skepticism in and and into more of a a hope based mindset. What a wise perspective. But thank you for sharing that, Michael. Okay. Now before we go any further, I wanna make sure everyone in the room is working from the same definitions. Because one of the things that I found creates confusion around the myth, it actually or is because I'm sorry. Because one of the things that creates confusion around this myth is that AI voice work actually refers to two distinct categories of work, and they are not the same thing. The first is voice data, sometimes called dataset work. This is where you submit your voice to contribute to a larger dataset. Your voice is used to train an AI model, not for public facing use of your voice. These jobs are a low barrier way to get started with AI work. They are often repeat work because AI models require continuous training, but they do have clearly defined terms on what the files can and can't be used for. And they're generally one of the best entry points into this space. Not a separate world from the second care category I'm about to mention, but a bridge into it. Alright. And that second category are voice AI jobs, also sometimes called cloning jobs. This is where you your recordings are used to build a digital voice that reflects your tone, rhythm, and personality. And that voice will be heard publicly in applications like smart speakers, in car assistance, or branded content. These jobs involve usage licensing contracts. And again, they have clearly defined terms, and they generally carry higher budgets because of the scope of that usage. Jeffrey, I wanna bring in you here specifically on dataset work because it operates differently from the cloning jobs we just talked about. And not a lot of people have had experience with dataset work. For people who haven't heard the term before, what is a dataset, and what is a voice actor actually being asked to do in one? Sure. Everybody hear me okay? Great. So a voice dataset, I like to think of, as clearly defined for me as art without an audience, is as simple as I can kind of put it. You get to practice your craft as an artist, but, no one except for people within the company mining, this information and collecting all of this data will have exposure to it. So your voice is not going to be heard on the radio. You won't suddenly, hear yourself on your telephone. It's, a data set in in and of itself is a structured collection of data for analysis and modeling and machine learning. So it's taking all of what you put into this data, all of the recordings that you will eventually do, and it's using that to create comprehensive data to create a number of different either products or, smooth voice systems, like, to ameliorate the responses of AI. So it's a private collection of voices, cadences, emotional ranges given by artists to ameliorate a multitude of programs. So you could think of, like, language learning tools, for example. You could think of online therapy, for example. For those that can't afford it, you know, you can ask AI questions, and it will point you to proper resources. You know? So there's lots of different, very productive applications for this kind of work, but it will never be your voice. That would be a completely separate contract, a completely separate deal with often higher budgets as Juliana explained. So it's, it's well remunerated, but it's quite private. Yeah. So a voice actor is asked to act to the best of their ability and to adhere to the prompts, that are given to them, and, that helps to assist with the creation of usable programmable data to fit whatever clients whatever the client's needs are. So that's it in a nutshell, I think. Oh, what a great explanation. Thanks, Jeffrey. I think what I take away from that is that it tells us that the human element is not secondary to this work. It is the work. Right? AI. Yeah. voice requires human performance to sound credible. The technology needs what you bring, nuance, emotion, and authenticity. Michael, as someone who's been in the industry for over a decade a decade, what do you think is a more positive message towards this myth and why? So and this time, I'm unmuted, guys. Hi. So I think that that is the message, right? The idea that we are necessary to its operation. It it it's kinda like if if there was a crane on a construction site, it needs the person to work. It's not gonna just do its own thing unless, of course, it's robotic, but it still needed someone to program it. The point is, it the voice data that's being built right now needs a human sitting in front of a microphone to build it. It's not something that, you know and especially because there are laws being put in place right now, there are ones that have already been written that say you can't just go grab someone's voice from the ether and then use it to build your dataset because you don't have that person's consent, and that's where contracts come in, and they're super, super important for that very reason. I mean, that happened with Scarlett Johansson a couple of years ago. Someone used her voice, and she sued them. So there are protections being put in place, but we are needed for this to work, period. And I think that because that's the fact, it at least has allowed me to kind of move into a more optimistic, viewpoint of it all because just like there are audiobook narrators, just like there are people who do, there's all these niches. There's audiobooks, there's explainer videos, there's on hold, there's IVR, there's all these different subsets of the voice acting industry that people fall into. I think dataset work is going to be one of those moving, and it already is. I mean, there are people that that's a niche for them. They do dataset work. Because there are always going to be new companies being founded, there are gonna be companies that want to build their own AI agents and not use somebody else's. And if they wanna build their own, well, they're gonna have to hire voice actors to build that dataset. So that's what kinda helps me move through this with confidence. It's like, yeah, we're it it's built with us, or it's not built at all. And eventually, like, in ten years' time, if we didn't do it, it would just be pulling from itself, the AI slop, which is kinda like it's disgusting, like, digitally to think about, but it'd kinda be like eating itself. And who knows what that would sound like? So we are a necessary part of this machine that is brand new, and I wanna be a part of building that machine and moving the industry forward, and having control. Like, the voice actor, the people having control over the new technology rather than the new technology pushing us out. There you go. That's well said, Michael. I agree. I think that's one of those interesting things for me to realize about dataset work is that it's not one and done. You know, a model needs to be continually trained, so it needs continual voice over. recordings. Right. It's a large a lot of repeat work that comes from that category. Oh, yeah. Okay. Victoria, as a performer, is there work you're doing now that simply did not exist five years ago? Hi, guys. I mean, AI. Work didn't exist five years ago, so we're kinda here, you know, AI. I think I like, to just start, I would say even though that I'm here as a panelist, I still have a lot of these questions myself despite doing AI work. I still wake up every day, and I'm like, I hope I have a job tomorrow. You know? I it's it's a new frontier for all of us, but I have grown a lot more comfortable with it in the last even six months, honestly. Like, we'll see what happens. But, I think, in general, I would say the thing I've noticed the most is that smaller jobs have gone away. You know? Like, these sort of small one and done, like, sometimes phone recordings or these jobs that are a $100 or under, that's decreased significantly. No doubt about that. But these mid level jobs and these high level jobs, meaning like $200 to $500 or $1,000 plus, those seem to still be here. And the only real difference and new way of working I've noticed in this is that usually, someone would approach you and say, hey, please do a scratch read for this voiceover, and we're going to edit a video around it and release it. And now what I find is that a lot of times, editors and directors and companies are coming to you, and they have a completed product, and they just want your voice over on top of it. They have a they have a voice in mind. They have a style in mind. And that's the newest way of working, I could say. You know, aside from just literally. doing jobs, I would say we're being kind of asked as voice over artists to kind of step into a vision that is almost complete. Whereas before, we were a bit more in control of crafting the vision of what the commercial might sound like. Now they are saying, okay. We've got this moody, you know, soft voice over, and we just want a human touch. So That's so cool. oh, I'd say. Very cool. I'm so glad you could share that with everyone. That's such a. great, like, real world experience of what it's been like for you as a professional voice actor. Yeah. That's the, main. difference. Yeah. Nice. Alright. So we know that new categories of work have opened up specifically because of AI jobs. We've got voice data collection, expressive range recording, conversational AI training. The opportunity is real. It's here, and it's expanding. So the question really is not whether AI work is going to replace you. The question is whether you are going to step into it. Now I bet some of you are thinking, okay, Juliana. This all sounds good, but what actually happens to my voice once I say yes to one of these jobs? And that is the question that came up second most in our survey. 65% of you said that knowing your voice and your rights are protected is the single thing that would make you feel confident enough to apply. So let's go there. Before we go to our plan panelist, I want to take a moment to level set on some terminology. Once you understand what these terms actually mean, I find that the brief stop feeling the brief stops feeling like a trap and starts feeling like a negotiation. So let's break it down. Usage rights. For those of you who are professional voice actors, you'll be familiar with the term usage rights, and it's used in the same way for AI jobs. Usage rights define how a client is permitted to use your voice recording. This covers the medium, broadcast, digital, internal, app based, the geography, and the duration. If a brief doesn't define usage clearly, that is a red flag and something you will not find when you are auditioning for jobs on voices. Jeffrey, I wanna bring you in here. When you're looking at a voice data job specifically, how are usage rights typically Yeah. So a couple of things that, I look for right away, and first and foremost, something that you just said, Julian, is very important. When I first hired, was hired, to do? this work, I made sure I reached out to voices directly, and I asked them how thoroughly these contracts are vetted, you know, where where they're coming from and that, you know, Voices has, like, sort of when they hire a client, when they have a client that is, and they're asking to reach out into their community, they're making sure that that client is an authentic client and that that client is, able to pay, that the contracts are legal, that they are well written. So you hopefully I mean, I'm sure we'll never get exposed to a bad contract. It's just what you're comfortable signing. The first and foremost things the two most important things that I look for, is that it's all internal. Because I love doing this sort of data set work, and one of the things that I truly love about it is, that aspect that I will never be heard. You know, that it's it's it's it's very private. It's very insular, in that in that regard. So I always make sure, that that is, like, paramount to me, that my voice won't be repeated elsewhere. And, also, that my that I won't be cloned. Okay. That's number two. You know, that I'm really confident that they're, you know, using a mass collection of a multi voices to to ameliorate programs and not just using my specific cadences or, you know, what I would view as, like, the soul of my voice isn't being taken and put somewhere else with a different timbre or tone. You know, those are the two things that I look for in a contract, most specifically. A lot of these datasets jobs, like, they will be in perpetuity, like, in terms of perpetual usage. Like, once you've recorded it, it's in that dataset and, you know, they they will be able to use that, but it will be used exclusively by that company and not be sold to another company. Right? So that the work continuously can flow. Right? As as, Michael mentioned earlier that every time a new startup comes and wants to record something that, that they will have to hire their own artists, to create their own data sets. So that's a very important, aspect. Those are the things that I look for the most. And when you get your contract, do be sure, to to read it all the way through and understand it. And I would say don't hesitate to reach out to the people at voices if there's something that you don't understand, or something that is, unclear to you. And I'm sure that there will be people happy to answer any of those questions. Yeah. You have been one of those people answering those questions. So yes. Yes. Exactly. Alright. Thanks, Yeah. Jeffrey. And that's a great segue into our next term, which is perpetual use. Perpetual means there is no defined end date on the usage like Jeffrey alluded to. The client can use the recording indefinitely within the terms of the brief. This one, understandably, makes some people nervous, but perpetual use is not the same as unlimited use. It still has to sit within whatever the brief defines, medium, geography, purpose. Right? And when working on voices, our sales team does try to push clients away from imperp and towards the defined term, but ultimately, it is the client's choice. And we know that some talents are open to these kinds of opportunities. For some people, these really do make sense, and we don't wanna take away those job opportunities, which is why you see them on voices. Now, Michael, I'm gonna go to you. When you see perpetual in a brief, what does that signal to you in terms of how to approach the conversation around compensation? So it depends like you said, it depends on the usage. Right? It's it's all very project specific. So it depends on the company, I think, and their budget. Because ultimately, you're still working within the budget of what, you know, they have to offer, and that comes down to comfortability of you, the talent. But something that I do that I think everybody should do because it helps the industry as a whole is look at the GVAA rates. There's a website. It is the what is it? Global Voice Acting Association, I believe, is what it stands for, but it's the GVAA site that gives you all of the different, rates and fees for, I mean, every detailed bit of of media that you could be voicing. So whenever I'm in doubt about, okay, let's say this is a a job for social media, and it's gonna be, on this specific company's, platform, and it's gonna be on YouTube, and it's gonna be on Instagram, and, like, across all socials, and it's in perp. Okay. I'm looking at what's the company, because there's a big difference between this is, you know, something like Apple or your local, you know, chicken wing place, and also, what's the region and, like, if it's regionality based. But what's the reach? What's the potential reach? And those answers can be found, you know, in in very, defined terms on the GVA site. So I really kinda I I always I call it my handy dandy, like, my handy dandy notebook. Like, whenever a client asks me, what's what's your budget for this, or what's your gonna be your quote, here's you know, and it's in perp. I go, okay. Well, I ask them more questions. That's the other thing. Always be asking your clients questions. If you aren't sure about what to do or what to quote, ask them. Ask them, one, what their budget is, and two, what it's actually going to be used for and who's gonna be seeing it and where, because that's gonna help you figure out whether or not you're okay with this being in perpetuity. And that's that's kinda how I approach that, and I do it with every client that does come forward to me with that request. Awesome. Thanks, Michael. Okay. Let's talk about exclusivity. Exclusivity means you agree not to record for competing clients or products for a defined period. It restricts your ability to take on other work in that category. We often see exclusivity terms on cloning jobs due to the public facing content. Now when you see non exclusive terms, it generally means you can continue to do your other voice work as normal. So bids are high, but not 6 figure high. When you see exclusive terms, this is where you need to start thinking about replacing lost potential income. For example, I was recently helping casting with a cloning job that had an exclusive one year contract, and bids came in around 80 to $110,000 US because the voice actors were replacing an entire year's worth of work with this one job. Okay. Victoria, have you ever turned down a job specifically because of exclusivity terms? What does that look like? Yes. I often actually turn down jobs because of exclusivity terms. So it really is as simple as what you just said, and and the metric is simply what is the cost of the lost opportunity. So if, I'm a lot more amenable to exclusivity terms when they're for a specific sector of work or voice cloning. So if someone says k. It's not super common. There's only, you know, so many numbers of cars you can be an in car navigation system for. This opportunity probably won't come up very often, so I'm likely going to accept some sort of exclusivity there. I'll still accept, I'll still seek a high fee, like you said, somewhere probably within the 50 to 100 k range, simply because there may be another car company that will approach me and my lost opportunity is that I will have to say no to them. And I'll also typically be looking for exclusivity in shorter terms, so one year's, two years max. If someone is coming to me for exclusivity broadly, meaning you can no longer do any phone system recording, you know, ever again if you if you clone your voice with this. At that point, then I'm gonna have to look at the lost cost throughout my career, throughout the next year or two. And unless they can sort of meet me at a pretty high number, like the numbers you were saying, I'm more than likely going to say no just because, in general, in my life, I'm recording so many phone systems that it wouldn't be worth it. And then if someone is going to come to you with exclusivity, meaning you cannot clone your voice, period, full stop, because you're going to be the new Siri or something like that, then you really have to consider lost opportunity, not just, for the year, but for your potential whole career. And at that point, you're looking at, well, a lot. Like, you're looking at a lot of money. So, yeah. I I often turn down exclusivity, but it's you summed it up well. It's essentially just calculating your own lost opportunity. Oh, awesome. Thanks for that insight. Alright. Let's talk about consent and approval. On voices, every AI project requires your explicit explicit approval before recording begins. You see the licensing terms. You see the usage definition. You decide before you record, not after. And the answer can always be no. You can always decline a project after auditioning. You are never locked in just because you submitted an audition. Alright. And my last term is implicit versus explicit approval. Explicit approval is direct, clearly stated consent. Think ticking a box or signing a document, and it offers high security and compliance. Implicit approval is inferred from actions like providing an email during a purchase, indicating interest without a direct agreement. Explicit is generally required for legal compliance and higher engagement, while implicit is often temporary. App voices, all consent is explicit. Okay. Now from the survey, you submitted some question additional questions. So let's play a game of true or false. Alright. You'll see a poll on the right of your screen. There is something that says chat, and then next to it, it says poll. Click on that to find the poll question. Alright. I'm curious to see everyone's understanding of these. True or false? Once I submit my voice to a client to be cloned, I lose all control of how my voice is used. Yes. Everybody gets it. That's false. Love it. You've been paying attention. Appreciate y'all. Alright. Let's do the next one. True or false? If I submit my voice for a voice data job, there's a chance the client will use to clone my voice without telling me. Yeah. That's right. The answer is false. On voices, the terms are defined in the contract before you record. Cloning only happens within the scope you agree to. Outside of that scope, you have not consented, so it doesn't happen. Alright. And last one, once I submit an audition for an AI job, I lose the opportunity to say no. Also falls. Yes. Everyone's been paying attention. A plus for y'all. Okay. Now let's talk about the process of working one of these jobs. Because I know it's hard to, like, think about what the process is like without going through it. And luckily, this is why we have our panelists with us today, to speak to their experiences going through the audition process, being shortlisted, signing the contract, and then fulfilling the ask of the job and anything that comes after. Jeffrey, I'm gonna start with you. Can you speak to your experience with voice data recordings for dataset jobs? Are you able to walk our audience quickly through the experience? Yes. I will do my best to be brief. It is a it is a wild experience. Like, at first, I didn't believe it was real. It felt like it was something in the ether that didn't exist, but it's actually quite simple and straightforward, so no fear. So you would reach out to voices first and foremost. You will have to register with them, but you don't need the advanced account, for the dataset work. It's the basic account. Right? So, you don't have to pay any fees or anything like that in order to do this work, which is really beneficial, of course, when you're just starting out, and then you can advance and sign up for the bigger thing later if you want. You know? Then you would have to create a method of payment system like a PayPal account. Very, very simple, but that's a big part of it. And then, of course, it's like recording your audition. So the first thing you wanna make sure of, and there'll be people to speak to this later, is equipment check, making sure that you have, like, an appropriate microphone, an appropriate space to give you the best chances of success. Like, a big echoey room in your house is probably not the best place to record. A smaller broom closet with blankets hung in it would do just fine. So, you know, you can be really improvisational in terms of, like, creating a space that is, good for you. A strong recommendation is I downloaded an interface called Audacity right away, which you need for some other, auditions and things like that to prerecord an audition, for example, and then to record and to listen, record and to listen, and to make sure that it's of a a very high quality, which you will get to understand. And a high quality is defined by, like, a very clear voice. No other sounds in the room. No pops. No cars driving by, you know, figuring out your technical distance microphone. Other people will cover this kind of thing. But that is part. of the process is making sure you have the right equipment. So once cast creating a good recording studio, it's a very simple and accessible platform. Once you do get that job, like, you will be able to just sign into your voice's recording studio, select the job, the prompts, and everything will be very clearly delineated, in on the screen. And then there's a record button, and you would just hit record and do your take, and then hit stop record, and then you're able to listen to it, to make sure that the recording went well, that it went properly, that you did what you intended to do, and then you can move on to the next prompt. It's quite simple. During the recording process, you can expect, you know, per one hour of recorded material, count for three hours. You may need to be doing a lot of different takes. Like, you might stumble along. It might be difficult. So don't look at the I'm being paid per recorded hour as it only takes one hour. It will take some more time than that. So, be prepared for that. And then it's a simple submit that job once you've completed it, and it will go into a category where it's under review. And once you see it passed to approved, that means that the job is done and it has been accepted. So it's a very, it's a very simple process. It's a little bit, like, confusing at first, but you will get it. It's, only takes about a couple of hours to sort of navigate yourself around, the whole system or less anyway. Yeah. Is that good? Yes. It is. Thanks for that insight, Jeffrey. Really. appreciate that. Okay. So then here's what myth number two looks like when you break it down. You don't lose control of your voice when you say yes to an a AI job. You read the brief. You understand what you're agreeing to. And if the terms don't work for you, you say no. That's not vulnerability, that's professional judgment. Okay. So now let's move on and talk about money. Myth number three, AI voice doesn't pay well. I wanna give you some numbers because a lot of you wrote in asking whether this actually pays, and the honest answer is it depends on how you approach it. Talent earnings on voices have grown a 170% over three years. AI voice jobs can pay up to 85 times more than a comparable traditional voice over project. 85 times. And 70% of our top earning talents on voices have already incorporated AI work into their portfolio. Now some of you have applied for AI voice jobs on voices and never heard back. That's a real frustration, and we hear it. The most common reasons for that is not meeting some part of the brief. Audio quality that doesn't meet the technical threshold, a performance that doesn't align with what the client asked for, or a language or accent mismatch. All of those are addressable, and we're gonna show you how to do that today. If that applies to you, you will be receiving a quality checklist in the next couple of weeks to help you self assess. And if you're a premium member with us today, track two, the audition clinic, goes deeper on exactly this. But let's talk about the other piece of this because earning well and AI voice work isn't only about landing the job, it's about understanding what you're being paid for. Understanding your pricing is a skill. Knowing what perpetual usage is worth, what exclusivity should cost, what fair rates look like for your voice in different context, that is information you can learn. This is not insider knowledge. It is a framework, and the audition clinic workshop after this panel goes deep on exactly that. Victoria, I'd like to bring you in here. Can you walk us through your earnings trajectory? What did the first few months of AI voice work look like for you, and what does it look like now? Yeah. So when I first started sort of considering and taking on AI jobs, I was mainly paying for, the a finished hour of recording. So giving them the data for my voice, I was doing jobs for maybe $1,000 or $2,000 in that kind of range. As I went on and I got more particular and understood more of how to negotiate and what contracts looked like, my earnings have increased pretty significantly. So at this point now, if someone is wanting to do an AI clone of my voice or they're seeking some sort of exclusivity or in perp usage, I'm negotiating contracts probably above $25,000 as, like, a minimum. So the earning potential is great. I have signed with a few companies where I've provided specific types of voices for them and, for example, certain tones of my voice or ways in which I communicate, for example, like a a hyper casual model versus a more professional and straight laced model. I've kind of negotiated, exclusivity terms in terms of the mood of my recording. And these companies are sometimes paying offering, like, $50,000 or more for these types of exclusivity deals. So, the earning potential is really, really high. And I used to be afraid, and now I'm kind of not, I think, for these reasons. And, I also 11 labs ed myself, finally. So I took the leap this year, and I'm earning passive income from that. And the income is pretty good on 11 labs. So I've, yeah, earning has increased a lot, and there's a lot of potential here. Awesome. Thanks for sharing. Cool. Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna jump to myth four and five. Myth number four, you need to be an established voice actor before you can get AI voice work. I wanna speak directly to everyone in this room who is earlier in their journey because over a third of you told us you're excited and ready to dive in, but you don't know where to start. This myth is the one that's keeping you on the sidelines, and it shouldn't be. Here's the truth. AI clients are not looking for the longest resume in the room. They're looking for dynamic, expressive performers who can read a brief, deliver exactly what was asked for, and do it with clean audio. If you have a theater background, an acting background, or even just a natural voice and a willingness to follow directions, you're already closer than you think. So the question isn't whether you're established enough. The question is whether your voice's profile is set up to be found and invited. So your setup, audio quality, and experience, which we will dive into shortly, gets you ready to record. However, there is one more thing that determines whether voices can send you AI job opportunities, and that is leveraging your profile. So go to your profile. Step one, opt in to AI voice casting and voice data categories. If you don't have those categories selected, then we can't invite you to the job postings. Two, make sure your languages and accents are up to date. Both of those categories are gonna look at your profile to see if your accents and languages match the job posting. So if your accents and languages aren't up to date, we can't send you the job postings. And three, add a profile, add a demo to your profile to be displayed in search and added to clients favorites list. So if there is one thing you do over the next twenty four hours, please make it to take one minute to update at least your categories and languages and accents on your voices profile. Alright. Let's jump back into the experience side of this month. Clients are looking for talent that are expressive performers, but can also take direction, adjust quickly, and deliver with precision. Theater backgrounds, improv experience, on camera acting, these are not adjacent qualifications for AI work. These are direct preparation for it. And the talent who are moving fastest in this space are often the ones who came in without a traditional VO reel because they led with performance in their audition. Victoria, what would you say to someone with an acting or performance background who has never done voice over work before and is considering their first AI job? For AI specifically, I think the number one piece of advice is to sound natural. They're really trying to, I mean, ironically, they want it to sound human. They're trying to clone a human voice. So sounding natural is the your primary goal. So whether you have an acting background or not, your challenge is kind of the most difficult challenge of all, which is speaking normally into a microphone in a small closet, as Jeffrey said. So, really, like, whether you have an acting background or not, the goal is to just sound super conversational as I'm talking to you now. I I think maybe you could focus a little bit on diction. You wanna be clear and you wanna be understood. But really just practicing, even if you're like, it might be harder if you're a trained actor, to be honest, because all essentially, you're going to have to practice really just sounding natural and having imperfections and catches in your voice and different things that make you you. So what they're looking for is you, your personality, your voice, and that's kind of all you really need whether you're an actor or not. Oh, thank you for that insight. Okay. Now let's go to myth five, the studio question. Here is what a qualifying recording setup requires. One, a quiet acoustically treated room. And I actually wanna show you a room we built in our Toronto office. As you can see, it's very makeshift, but this does the trick. It doesn't an acoustically treated room does not mean a professional booth. It means soft furnishing, carpets, pillows, blanket, a closet full of clothes. Hard surfaces create echo, and echo cannot be fixed in postproduction. And remember before you record, turn off the fans, HVAC, appliances, close the doors and windows, secure your pets. Choose a space where you will not be interrupted. Two is your mic. Ideally, it's a large it's a large diaphragm condenser microphone through an audio interface. What will get your files rejected? Bluetooth mics, AirPods, laptop and smartphone microphones, and really any consumer grade wireless mic. USBs USB mics are hit or hit or miss. There are some really good ones out there though, like Audio Technica makes some really good USB microphones. But if you ask me if you're gonna get a mic for voice over, get an XLR mic plus an interface and just saves you the trouble of upgrading later. Three, you need clean signal levels. You need a low noise floor. You need healthy signal levels. You need a strong signal to noise ratio, no clipping. When you record at levels that are too loud and the waveform flattens, the audio is permanently clipped and the original audio peak cannot be recovered. Four, you need to deliver the performance as directed. Five, you need to follow the project guidelines precisely. Sometimes the difference between accepted and rejected files just comes down to whether or not the talent followed the directions in full. So let me be clear about where the bar actually sits. AI voice clients do have technical standards. They need clean recordings, correct file format, acoustically treated environments, consistent levels. These are not negotiable. But meeting those standards does not require a professional studio. I mean, you saw the photo of our in office recording space in Toronto. Jeffrey, what did your setup look like when you started? Sorry. My setup when I started was, just a very simple setup. I I have, like, this wonderful basement in my house. We had to dig out last year, and what I did was very similar to what the Toronto studio did. I had a bunch of, big fat comf blankets. And since I work as a carpenter, I have a lot of, alligator clamps as well. So I clamped them onto the floor joists and surrounded a desk, inside of the basement and had, just a very simple light, a very calm little space. And, I would just, sit there and record. And, yeah, because it's a basement, that's where the furnace is. Had to turn everything off. So the winter, it got a bit cold, but I made it through. So it's really just doing the best you can with what you have on hand. And, and really, like I said before, doing tests for yourself. Make sure it sounds really good when you listen to it through headphones. You know what I mean? You'll you'll know the difference when you when you hear it. Yeah. Agreed. Studio headphones are a must. Mhmm. Alright. And last one, Michael, you and your father have both been in the industry for a very long time. Are you able to let our audience know what your thoughts are on what the next twelve months might look like for someone who's just getting started in the AI space now? Yeah. It it's gonna change. It's it's definitely gonna change. Right? I mean, the way I kinda looked at this when it was really starting two and a half years ago was and the thing I told people, like, before anybody had even really done any work in it, I was like, just wait. I was like, just wait. Like, we don't know where this is going yet. And I think that when it comes to just looking out in, like, I mean, I don't even see a year as a macro. I see that as, like, a micro, you know, in in this entire journey because it's gonna be vastly different a year from now than ten years from now. And if we're looking at just the next year, get interested. Like, get interested in it. Get curious. Start researching, start auditioning more, and move with the flow of where this is going. And try and keep your finger on the pulse of the industry when it comes to AI. And, like, you guys at Voices have great insight and do these amazing polls and do this amazing research over there that describe where it's going. So if you wanna look at, you know, where it's gonna go and predict where it might go, Voices has great resources for that. But be curious. Go watch what other people have to say about it and have conversations about it, but be open. Be curious. Be open. Do auditions. Don't be afraid of it, And and dive in head first because I believe that if you dive in head first to this kind of work, as as we have, you're you're gonna you know, there'll be, like, trouble spots, but you won't fail. And and and it'll be less scary if you do allow yourself to move with the flow of change because we're in a technology space. Like, as much as we are in an entertainment slash communication slash data set, like, space, we're in a tech space too. And that's a unique thing about being a voice actor as just necessarily traditional actors. Like, we kind of dive into the tech space a little bit, and tech is always evolving and changing. And there's gonna be something new in twelve months that wasn't here that we wouldn't have even thought about. So be open and keep your eyes open to it all and keep your mind open to it all. And I think that makes it a lot easier to move through. I would agree. Yeah. Alright. So in closing, AI is here. It's not coming. It is already here, and it's creating jobs, real ones on this platform right now for voice actors exactly like you. And at voices, we're not on the sideline of the shift. We are in it, and we are here specifically to make sure that our talent community is the one benefiting from it. So I wanna echo the following. The tools are real. The jobs are real. The income is real. And you are ready for this. Probably more ready than you think. So here is your one action from today. Not one, not a list, just one. In the next thirty days, apply to one AI job on voices. That's it. Just one audition where you read the brief, you understand what the client is asking for, and you submit something that reflects that. And for an added incentive, if and when you apply for an AI job through voices, you'll be entered into a draw for the chance to win a $300 gift card to Amazon. And remember, to be invited to an AI job on voices, you have to check that your profile has the voice data and AI voice categories checked on. Alright. Now if you're a premium member, your workshops begin right now. Track one is your first AI job. Track two is the audition clinic. Lastly, there is a short survey popping up on your screen right now. We'd greatly appreciate your feedback so we can continue doing events like this. Now thanks so much to our amazing panelists, Victoria, Michael, and Jeffrey, and thank you to every single person who showed up today with real questions and an open mind. For those heading to the next sessions, click on agenda that is the top right of your screen and click the stage button. You can then click the all tracks. And from there, scroll down to choose your first AI job or audition clinic. See you all next time.