# Speech synthesis / text-to-speech (TTS)

Record: term-speech-synthesis · Type: term · Edition: 0.20.0 · Evidence cutoff: 2026-09-15

[Read in the atlas](https://theaiatlas.org/ideas/speech-synthesis/) · [Complete evidence](https://theaiatlas.org/evidence.html#idea-speech-synthesis) · [JSON](https://theaiatlas.org/records/term-speech-synthesis.json) · [Pinned complete dataset](https://theaiatlas.org/editions/e74392d479c0e7da8636a7d6a0454d03510df86ffca9931eb86babd952665ca5/data.json)

Dataset pointer: `/glossary/120`. Reviewed: 2026-09-15.

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## Publication dates and source age

Publication dates are unavailable.

Newest dated source: unavailable. Assessed at this edition’s evidence cutoff: 2026-09-15. 18-month boundary: 2025-03-15.

Publication age does not establish validity or a new source-reading date. Unknown dates and month/year precision remain explicit in the JSON record.

## /summary

Software that produces spoken audio, often from written text, for example to read a document aloud.

Claim: claim-term-speech-synthesis-1a5192ba3d7825ca26b24a72. Annotation: synthesis.

[glossary-wide-tts](https://huggingface.co/learn/audio-course/en/chapter2/tts_pipeline)

## /definition

Text-to-speech systems turn text into a speech signal. They can be used to read a document aloud or provide an audio version of a message. Speech generation is one type of audio generation.

Claim: claim-term-speech-synthesis-1e4c26398ee834b2e16dc7b8. Annotation: synthesis.

[glossary-wide-tts](https://huggingface.co/learn/audio-course/en/chapter2/tts_pipeline)

## /placement

Map context: this describes an output method. We do not treat a synthetic voice as an actor or an ideology.

Claim: claim-term-speech-synthesis-25f52a21ad9f2e54a62ed1b2. Annotation: editorial.

[glossary-wide-tts](https://huggingface.co/learn/audio-course/en/chapter2/tts_pipeline)

## /distinction

Speech recognition turns audio into text. Speech synthesis goes the other way. Producing speech does not necessarily mean imitating a particular real person.

Claim: claim-term-speech-synthesis-09422ce4d5c74cb753a9bb98. Annotation: synthesis.

[glossary-wide-tts](https://huggingface.co/learn/audio-course/en/chapter2/tts_pipeline)

## Source provenance

### glossary-wide-tts

[Audio generation with a pipeline](https://huggingface.co/learn/audio-course/en/chapter2/tts_pipeline)

Hugging Face · First-hand source (primary) · Published: undated · Material last read: 2026-09-15 · Verification: read

Read scope is described in the source note.

Read the speech-generation definition and examples. Used for the distinction between producing spoken audio, transcribing speech and generating music, without adopting product-quality claims.

No archive check recorded.