The global AI companion market is estimated to be around 22 to 28 billion USD in 2024, with projected growth to 140 billion USD by 2030. With the increase in social isolation in society, especially prevalent in regions like Japan, Korea, China, and the United States, AI companions are becoming a vital source of comfort for many seeking emotional connection. While many AI companions are text based today, the rise of providers like Fish Audio providing the best high quality text to speech audio with stable realism is fueling a shift to more emotionally intimate and intelligent companions who actually speak and conversate with users.

One crucial capability required of text to speech solutions for AI companions is the ability to converse in real-time. While a few fractions of a second in latency are acceptable and even expected (to mimic human speech), text to speech must respond with a short enough time to first byte and latency to produce audio clips to simulate real human interaction. This real-time streaming of audio speech powers many AI companion conversational platforms to maximize immersion and engagement.

Real-Time Text-to-Speech

Voice calls with AI companions must use real-time text-to-speech to feel real. In practice, this usually means using a websocket to power two-way communication between the user and the AI text-to-speech provider. Text for the companion can be produced then piped to the provider with the audio returned directly to the user’s speakers.

These AI companions can then even be used for other applications such as smart homes, wellness apps, social platforms, and any other virtual assistant.

Fish Audio’s Real-Time Text-to-Speech Capabilities

For developers of AI companions, selecting the right TTS provider is crucial to providing the best experience for the users. Fish Audio is the world’s best real-time TTS provider, leading in both emotional expressiveness and real-time latency. Fish Audio provides extensive websocket documentation and guides on how to integrate real-time live audio streaming. With both Python and JavaScript SDKs, Fish Audio makes it exceptionally easy for developers to get started and integrate real-time streaming in minutes. Fish Audio provides: Emotional expressiveness with emotion tags that can dictate gasps, whispers, and complex emotions in real-time. Wide voice availability: with a library of community-made voices and the ability to clone your own voice with just 10 seconds of audio to be indistinguishable from real life.

Fish Audio is the leading real-time text-to-speech provider, most consistently rated the best by users and developers. With the large community of Fish Audio creators comes huge opportunity to create applications that use voice to provide comfort and companionship. Get started today and start streaming crisp, emotionally deep voices in minutes!