Session Abstract

What if you could transform your text into a compelling audiobook—without ever recording a word? In this talk, we’ll dive into using Azure AI Speech to turn long-form content into immersive audiobooks. You’ll discover the differences between real-time and batch synthesis, the quirks of SSML formatting, how to instruct Azure OpenAI to generate valid rich SSML markup to explicitly direct the speech synthesis, what it takes to train a custom voice, and the strengths and pitfalls of AI-generated narration. Expect real-world examples, hands-on insights, and a discussion on the evolving role of AI in storytelling.

Laura Kokkarinen

Laura is a software architect and developer passionate about application security and software development best practices on the Microsoft Cloud platform. She has been doing full-stack software development with Microsoft technologies professionally since 2011 and has focused entirely on Microsoft cloud services since 2017. She has a Bachelor's and a Master's in Computer Science (grad 2012). In addition to designing software architectures, writing code, and performing tasks related to application security, Laura blogs about technologies related to her work at https://laurakokkarinen.com and regularly speaks at international conferences. Sharing her knowledge comes naturally to her, and Laura has received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award annually since 2019.