Facing new competition in the audiobook market from Spotify, Audible is turning to AI and other technology to enhance the listening experience. On Thursday, the Amazon-owned company introduced three new features that will allow listeners to explore a book’s characters, engage in interactive stories, and view additional imagery and bonus information about landmarks or places mentioned in the book.
If you’re thinking the last would be great for highlighting the different courts’ locations in Sarah J. Maas’ faerie realm of Prythian, I must disappoint you. The feature will first arrive in just one title for now, “The Cultural Tutor: A Modern Guide to History, Art, and Philosophy in 49 Short Chapters” by Sheehan Quirke, which focuses on making culture more accessible by teaching about poetry, art, architecture, geography, and more in short lessons.
The other new features, a character guide and interactive stories, are also starting off fairly small.
With Audible’s October 1 release of its Audible Original “Dracula,” the character guide will help listeners keep track of the cast of characters in the book, something that’s harder to do when listening than when reading. (The Audible Originals label doesn’t necessarily signal that the content is original, as “Dracula” is not. It means Audible’s own studios have produced the audiobook, memoir, exclusive series, podcast, or performance.)
In “Dracula,” the character guide will display who’s speaking in real time directly on the player page so listeners don’t get lost. It will also provide spoiler-free character cards, which showcase the narrator behind the voice and their bio. Audible says users will later be able to interact with the guide to ask questions about the story as it unfolds.
Other audiobooks gaining access to the character guide include the Audible Original of George Orwell’s “1984” and the forthcoming Audible Original “Exoplanet” from writer Benjamin Percy and executive producer Andy Weir (author of “Project Hail Mary” and “The Martian”).
A third feature, interactive stories, will also come to “Dracula” and “Exoplanet.”
Here, the idea is to bring the listener into the story through a bonus experience in which they interact with a book’s character. Powered by generative AI, the feature lets listeners interact with Dracula’s servant, Renfield, in the new Audible Original.
The character will speak first, giving the listener a role, goal, and stakes, and the listener then responds in their own words. The character will react to what’s said in real time.
Audible says the creators are involved in the foundations of the interactive stories, so the stories stay grounded in what’s happening in the book. Or, in the case of something like “Dracula,” the stories are meant to stay faithful to the original creator’s vision.
The changes come as audiobook listenership and revenue grow, with U.S. sales reaching $2.43 billion in 2025. The increased demand can be chalked up to several factors, from the proliferation of the smartphone to people’s increasingly busy schedules that make sitting down to read a book feel like a luxury. One could probably also credit TikTok’s “BookTok” community for pushing reading more into the mainstream — something that’s reflected in the most popular audiobook genres, which overlap with BookTok’s interests in fiction, sci-fi, thrillers, and, of course, romantasy.
“These new features invite listeners into a story in ways that simply weren’t possible before, marking the latest step in our nearly 30-year journey to push audio storytelling forward,” said Audible’s Chief Content Officer, Rachel Ghiazza, in a statement about the launch. “We’re excited to build on these while working hand in hand with creators, because we know that more time spent with stories benefits everyone who helps bring them to life.”
