There are moments when I use AI and think, “Wow. This is getting really interesting.”
Today was one of those moments.
I spent about an hour listening to AI playback powered by Chrome.
What did I listen to?
Mostly my own writing.
I opened some of my articles from AI123.ca and Grandpa Journey and let Chrome's AI playback do its thing.
At first, I thought it would simply read my articles aloud.
I was wrong.
And that was the part that surprised me.
It Wasn't Reading My Article
Chrome's AI playback is very different from ordinary text-to-speech.
Instead of one voice reading every sentence, the AI creates something more like a conversation or a podcast discussion about the article.
Sometimes there are two voices — a man and a woman — talking to each other.
They don't simply repeat what I wrote.
They discuss it.
They summarize the main ideas.
They react to the story.
They make connections.
And sometimes they sound genuinely interested in what they are talking about.
I found myself sitting there thinking:
“These two are talking about my article!”
That was a strange — and surprisingly enjoyable — experience.
Google describes Chrome's AI playback as generating “podcast-like conversations” from a webpage, while its Standard playback simply reads the text.
Hearing My Own Writing in a Different Way
As a blogger, I normally experience my writing with my eyes.
I write the words.
I edit them.
I publish them.
Then I move on to the next article.
But listening to AI discuss one of my articles gave me a completely different perspective.
Suddenly, I wasn't the writer anymore.
I was the audience.
I could hear which ideas stood out.
I could hear how the story might sound to somebody who had never met me.
And sometimes I even caught myself thinking:
“That's actually a pretty good point.”
Of course, the AI can make mistakes. It is still AI, after all.
But the experience itself was fascinating.
Could This Help My Blog?
This is the question that immediately came to my mind.
Could AI playback help a blog like AI123.ca or Grandpa Journey?
Not necessarily by magically bringing more visitors.
I don't think we should make that claim.
But perhaps there is another opportunity.
Maybe AI can give an article a second life.
A reader can read the article.
Another reader can listen to an AI conversation about the article.
Someone else might discover the article through search or social media and then spend more time exploring the site.
The important word here is engagement.
As a blogger, I don't want only pageviews.
Of course, pageviews are nice.
But I also want people to stay.
I want them to read another story.
I want them to become curious.
I want them to spend a few minutes with an idea rather than five seconds on a webpage before moving on.
Could AI playback contribute to that?
I think it is worth experimenting with.
But I will be watching my Google Analytics before I make any big claims.
Imagine This
Suppose I publish an article on AI123.ca called:
“The $1-a-Day Advertising Experiment.”
Someone reads it.
Then AI discusses it in a conversational way.
Instead of hearing my article word-for-word, the listener might hear the main idea explained from another perspective:
Why would an 80-year-old blogger want to offer small businesses advertising for one dollar a day?
Why only the first 100 businesses?
What is the bigger purpose behind the experiment?
Suddenly, my little article becomes something that can be discussed, not merely read.
That is a fascinating change.
And I think it could be even more interesting with Grandpa Journey.
A story about friends having dinner together could become a conversation about friendship, memories and growing older.
A story about my family could become a discussion about what makes an ordinary day memorable.
The technology isn't just reading my words.
It is giving those words another form.
The Blogger Becomes the Listener
Perhaps the biggest surprise today was not what the AI said.
It was what I heard.
For about an hour, I listened to my own articles.
And I enjoyed it.
That made me think about something.
As bloggers, we spend so much time creating content that we rarely stop to experience our own work from the other side.
AI gave me that opportunity.
It became almost like having two radio hosts sitting beside me, discussing something I had written.
And I was listening.
We Are Still at the Beginning
I don't know where this technology will take us.
Maybe one day every article will have a written version, an audio version, a video version and an AI conversation.
Maybe not.
But I do know this:
AI is changing what it means to publish something online.
A blog post used to be something you read.
Now it can become something you read, hear, discuss and experience in different ways.
That is exciting.
And, as someone who enjoys writing and experimenting with AI, I couldn't resist trying it on my own work.
After about an hour of listening, I came away with one simple thought:
Maybe my articles aren't finished when I press “Publish.”
Maybe that is only the beginning.
This is simply my personal experience with Chrome's AI playback. AI-generated discussions can contain errors, so I would treat them as another way to experience an article — not as a replacement for the original.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Take a moment to share your views and ideas in the comments section. Enjoy your reading