Speechify

Speechify is a text-to-speech and voice AI application available as a web app, Chrome and Edge browser extensions, iOS and Android apps, and Windows and Mac desktop apps. Its core function is reading text aloud in computer-generated voices: users can upload PDFs and documents, have web pages read in the browser, or photograph physical books and printed text, which optical character recognition converts into audio. The catalog includes more than 1,000 AI voices in over 60 languages, with playback up to 4.5x speed, synchronized text highlighting and speed controls. Celebrity voices include Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Beyond reading aloud, the product has expanded into a broader "Voice AI Assistant": voice typing dictation that works across applications such as Google Docs, Gmail, Slack, Outlook and Cursor; a question-answering assistant with web search that responds in the context of what the user is reading; one-click podcast generation from a document or short description; an AI meeting note taker with summaries and Q&A over calls; and a voice-first document workspace with note taking, summarization, quizzing and recap features. A separate line, Speechify Studio, targets creators and businesses with an AI voice generator, voice cloning, AI dubbing, an AI voice changer and AI video creation and editing tools. Speechify also licenses a text-to-speech API that powers other products.

The app is positioned for students, professionals, creators, entertainment listeners, and accessibility users — originally people with dyslexia, ADHD, vision impairments and language learners — and is offered on a freemium basis.

Founding story

Founder Cliff Weitzman grew up in Israel and moved to the United States before high school while learning English. He was diagnosed with dyslexia at the end of third grade and turned to audiobooks at around age 12. While studying an independent renewable energy engineering concentration at Brown University, he built about 36 products, including a tool for himself that read highlighted text aloud from Chrome, messages, email, PDFs and Word documents, and later an iPhone app that scanned physical books into audiobooks. After reading a paper on applying deep learning to text to speech, he improved voice quality, image-to-text conversion and natural language cleanup, and usage grew after he presented at dyslexia conferences, was invited by around a dozen schools, and produced videos that went viral.

Business model

Freemium consumer and business software: free tiers across apps with paid upgrades advertised as unlocking advanced AI voices, unlimited files and 24/7 support, plus a creator/business product (Speechify Studio) and a text-to-speech API sold to companies that embed it in their own products. The founder has described the customer mix as having moved from primarily B2C to roughly an even split between B2B and B2C.

Freemium subscriptions for the consumer apps, paid Studio tooling for creators and teams, and usage of the text-to-speech API by other products.

Traction

60M+ users cited on the company website in 2026 (up from 50M+ users cited in company materials in 2023), over 1M five-star reviews, a 4.7 rating from about 435,000 App Store ratings for the mobile app and 4.6 from about 21,000 ratings for the Chrome extension. Company materials state usage in nearly 200 countries. Published research cited on Wikipedia reports better reading comprehension outcomes for dyslexic students using Speechify versus traditional means.

Latest developments

In November 2025 Speechify added voice typing and a voice assistant to its Chrome extension; in December 2025 it released a Mac app centered on dictation; and in January 2026 it launched the Voice AI Assistant on iOS. The website's headline promotion in 2026 is the launch of Voice Typing dictation, alongside AI podcast creation, an AI meeting note taker and a voice-first document workspace. Company blog posts from 2026 include commentary on the founder's appearance on 20VC.