Tool · Voice and speech, Talking presenters

Azure AI Speech

Microsoft's cloud speech service for developers and businesses. It reads text aloud in many neural voices, turns recordings into text, translates speech and can make a talking-avatar video. Custom voice copies need Microsoft's approval and the speaker's recorded consent.

Go to Azure AI Speech’s website

At a glance

Open or closed: Closed
Only usable through the maker's app or API
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Licence: Microsoft Product Terms for Online Services (The maker's own terms)
Product Terms not read; name is our reading of the Azure contract structure.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · inferred or from a secondary source; needs review
Can I sell what I make?: Yes
Inferred: a paid business cloud API. Microsoft's Product Terms were not read; needs review. Custom voice is limited to use cases Microsoft approves.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · inferred or from a secondary source; needs review
Cost: Free option: Each month: 5 audio hours of speech to text, 0.5 million characters of neural text to speech, 5 hours of speech translation
Plans below.
How you use it: Maker's own API, In your browser, On your own computer
Speech Studio / Microsoft Foundry portal (no-code), Speech SDK, CLI, REST APIs, and containers for on-premises use. Needs an Azure account.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Skill needed: Technical
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked, but the page was unclear or partial
Made by: Microsoft
Country not stated on the pages read.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Status: Available
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page

What you can make with it

A voice or speech, read my text aloud (main use)
A voice or speech, text from a recording
A voice or speech, my audio in another language
A voice or speech, a written translation of a recording
A voice or speech, a copy of my own voice
A talking presenter, a presenter video from a script
A talking presenter, a presenter people can talk to live

text to audioaudio to textaudio to audiotext to video

Overview lists speech to text (real-time, fast, batch, custom), neural text to speech with custom voice, text-to-speech avatar (batch or real time), speech translation, pronunciation assessment and Voice Live.

source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page

Plans and prices

Plan	Price	Includes
Free (F0)	Free	300 minutes of audio a month; 500,000 characters of text a month

Some plans are not listed here; see the source for the full list.

Prices rendered by script; not readable (tables showed '$-'). Only free-tier allowances could be read; currency of the free plan is nominal.

source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · inferred or from a secondary source; needs review

Rights and safety

Real faces and voices: Copies a real voice (custom neural voice (professional)), checks the person's consent
Copies a real voice (personal voice), checks the person's consent
Copies a real face (custom text-to-speech avatar), you only promise you have permission
Custom voice and personal voice are Limited Access (Microsoft-managed customers only); the speaker records a consent statement that Microsoft may match against the training audio. Custom avatar's consent steps weren't in the excerpt read; personal voice consent check assumed same as custom voice.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked, but the page was unclear or partial

Other options for “A voice or speech, read my text aloud”

Adobe Firefly, Akool, Amazon Polly, Arcads, Async (formerly Podcastle), Bark, CAMB.AI, Cartesia, Chatterbox, Clipchamp, Deepgram, DeeVid AI, Descript, Dia, Dubverse, Eleven v3, ElevenLabs, F5-TTS, fal, Filmora, Fish Audio, FlexClip, Fliki, getimg.ai

About this entry

Facts last checked 12 Oct 2026 against the maker’s own pages (each fact links to its source). Entry status: draft. Plain-English summary written by Plainly.