Yoto: AI, Audiobooks, and Expanding Audience Reach

Yoto's CEO discusses AI's impact on audiobooks, content curation, and expanding to older generations. Revenue is set to exceed £100m. AI use will be transparent to cater to audience sensitivities.

Drury talked together with Michael Tamblyn, chief executive officer of the Canada based electronic book and e-reader firm, about the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and responding to the “ageing” of the regular consumer.

Yoto’s Revenue Growth and Awards

8 years after co-founding Yoto with Filip Denker, the business’s earnings are readied to break the ₤ 100m point for the very first time in 2025. “Our reported revenue last year was around ₤ 95m [up from ₤ 50.9 m in 2023],” Drury said. “This year will be a great deal higher.” The news comes soon after the screen-free, card-based audio player was named Sound Company of the Year at the inaugural Speakies Awards.

AI’s Potential and Risks in Audiobooks

The panel also talked about the impact of AI on audiobooks. Drury believes AI provides a mix of possibility and risk, forecasting that the technology can assist harness lots of clients beyond the UK, such as the 5,000-plus customer base in Romania. “With cautious use of AI, and I assume always with a human as a quality-control device, it would possibly permit us, through working very close with 11 laboratories as an example, to be able to create some Romanian content and Hungarian material, Bulgarian content. So, I’m extremely bullish on that side of things.

“On the AI slop inquiry, that is an issue … We do have an extremely curated system. We have around about 2,000 titles in the Yoto catalogue globally across all the marketplaces we operate in. So, it’s rather little about several content platforms.

“We are really aware of AI and we have an outright 100% openness policy. If any type of AI is used on the real audio recording, we will make certain that it’s constantly divulged, not in the fine print, yet in fact really clearly as a badge, due to the fact that our audience is really delicate regarding AI for their children therefore we intend to go ‘pro-choice’ on how we want individuals to recognize that there’s AI there and then they can pick.”

Drury thinks the item has a much longer shelf life than he had prepared for. The company is taking into consideration how older generations can utilize the product more, Drury informed delegates. Drury believes AI presents a mix of possibility and risk, anticipating that the technology can assist harness many clients outside of the UK, such as the 5,000-plus customer base in Romania. “With careful usage of AI, and I believe constantly with a human as a quality-control device, it would possibly permit us, with functioning very close with 11 laboratories for instance, to be able to produce some Romanian web content and Hungarian web content, Bulgarian web content.” On the AI slop question, that is a trouble … We do have a very curated system.

Addressing Piracy-Adjacent Material

He added: “And afterwards, alongside that, we have all of these points that are sort of like piracy-adjacent material, like take a publication, swap out all the character names, swap out all the place names, you understand, give it sort of a light reword and then package it once again and stick it out.

Extending Product Lifespan Beyond Children

The firm is thinking about just how older generations can make use of the product much more, Drury informed delegates. “There is a simplicity to Yoto and we really see also a market for older relatives utilizing it with parents, grandparents with perhaps dementia or struggling to get on with modern-day innovation, which is ending up being increasingly more challenging. There is a simplicity. Our products always function offline, so you do not even require a net connection. They’re battery powered. So there is that simpleness, which is appealing to a bigger audience, however we are really concentrated on youngsters.”

Drury thinks the product has a longer service life than he had actually expected. “What has actually stunned us, when we started Yoto, we assumed that 8 resembled the ceiling,” He said. “We believed we would certainly have a hard time past eight as a result of smart devices and whatever else, but it’s never the case. After that we increased it to 12. We’re now publishing titles on Yoto which are 14-plus. So we are able to keep youngsters and families with us a lot longer than we expected. And we’re working on that. We’re working on exactly how we can maintain them even if they have actually got a mobile phone. Which is a good point for us since individuals are delaying smart devices for their children. And we’re thinking of just how we can play in the family setting.”