AI Narration – Text-to-Speech Audio Publishing

AI Narration creates spoken versions of selected WordPress content and stores completed audio in WordPress uploads for direct visitor playback.

Free includes:

• Narration for pages, posts and other supported public content
• OpenAI speech generation using your own API key
• Optional automatic background generation when eligible narrated content is published or updated
• Optional narration of H2 headings
• Standard WordPress placement shortcodes
• Established HTML placement-marker compatibility
• Elementor compatibility
• Durable background generation, bounded retries and safe queue recovery
• Atomic regeneration that keeps existing audio available until its replacement is complete
• A responsive player with an estimated listening time, countdown and 15-second skip controls
• Light and Dark fixed player presets
• Searchable and paginated stored-audio management

Provider credentials remain on the WordPress server. Visitors receive stored audio and player information, never API keys or source narration text.

AI Narration Pro is a separately distributed plugin that adds reusable Custom Audio, independent narration profiles, Gemini and ElevenLabs provider choice, bulk audio management, aggregate listening insights, customisable player wording and appearance, and Light, Dark and System administration modes. Explore AI Narration Pro.

Placement

Add [ai_narration] where the public player should appear and narration should begin. Add [ai_narration_stop] where narration should end. The stop shortcode is recommended; without it, narration continues through the remaining supported page content.

Use a WordPress Shortcode block, Classic Editor content or a page-builder element that processes WordPress shortcodes. AI Narration recognises only its own placement shortcodes while preparing narration; unrelated shortcodes are not executed.

Existing HTML markers remain supported for established content and specialised layouts:

If AI Narration is deactivated, WordPress may display unprocessed placement shortcodes on the public page. Use the equivalent HTML markers when placements should remain invisible while the plugin is inactive; the players return when the plugin is reactivated.

<div data-narration-start></div>

<div data-narration-stop></div>

Add the class ai-narration-exclude to an element that should be omitted from narration.

Providers and external services

AI Narration sends cleaned source text to OpenAI when a WordPress administrator previews a voice, when automatic generation is enabled and eligible narrated content is published or updated, or when an administrator requests generation. OpenAI charges, quotas, availability, terms and data practices apply independently.

• OpenAI narration is stored as AAC. Review the OpenAI Service Terms and OpenAI Privacy Policy.
  AI Narration is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenAI.

Background processing

When automatic generation is enabled, eligible narrated content is queued when it is published or updated. Administrator-requested generation and regeneration use the same short background steps. AI Narration requests immediate local continuation after each provider response and retains WordPress cron as the durable fallback. Unchanged narrated content is not regenerated.

Activation does not bulk-generate established content. Publish or update an eligible narrated item, or deliberately change its eligibility, to place it in the queue.

Temporary network, provider-server and HTTP 429 failures use bounded increasing delays. Authentication, permission and invalid-configuration failures stop promptly. Existing completed audio remains playable during regeneration and after a replacement failure.

For low-traffic sites or hosts that restrict WordPress loopback requests, a hosting scheduler may request wp-cron.php once per minute. This is an optional reliability improvement, not a normal installation requirement.

Privacy and data

• Provider API keys remain on the WordPress server and are not sent to visitors.
• Source text is sent server-side to OpenAI only during voice preview, enabled automatic generation after eligible content changes, or administrator-requested generation.
• Generated audio is stored beneath wp-content/uploads/ai-narration and served directly to visitors.
• Public stored playback does not send source text to the provider.
• Public playback sessions use a salted hash of the visitor IP for short-lived request protection; the raw address is not stored.
• Deactivation and uninstall preserve shared settings and generated audio so moving between Free and Pro remains reversible.

Current limitations

• One provider chunk is generated per background request to remain suitable for shared hosting.
• Public playback requires completed stored audio. Content that has never been generated does not display a player.
• Very long narration is limited to 50,000 cleaned characters and 20 browser chunks.
• Provider preview models and response formats can change and may require an update.