Polly – Amazon Polly Convert Text into Natural Speech Using AWS

Source: Dev.to

Overview

Amazon Polly is a Text-to‑Speech (TTS) service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It uses advanced machine learning and deep learning technologies to generate realistic human voices, enabling developers to add speech capability to their applications with minimal effort.

Key Benefits

• No manual voice recording – eliminates time‑consuming and hard‑to‑update recordings.
• Scalable & fast – handles real‑time and batch processing at any scale.
• Pay‑as‑you‑go – you only pay for the characters processed.
• Multiple languages & voices – supports 30+ languages with a variety of male and female voices, including Neural Text‑to‑Speech (NTTS).
• Easy integration – works with AWS SDKs, Lambda, S3, Transcribe, Lex, and other services.
• No infrastructure management – fully managed and highly reliable.

How Amazon Polly Works

1. Input – Provide the text you want to synthesize.
2. Select language and voice – Choose from the available languages, voices, and NTTS options.
3. Conversion – Polly converts the text into speech.
4. Output – The result is an audio file (e.g., MP3, WAV) that can be streamed or stored.

Polly also supports SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) for fine‑grained control over pronunciation, speech rate, volume, and more.

Common Use Cases

• Voice assistants
• E‑learning platforms
• Accessibility applications (e.g., screen readers)
• News readers
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems

Integration with AWS Services

• AWS Lambda – trigger speech synthesis in serverless workflows.
• Amazon S3 – store generated audio files.
• Amazon Transcribe – combine speech‑to‑text and text‑to‑speech pipelines.
• Amazon Lex – enhance conversational bots with natural speech output.

Pricing Highlights

• Standard voices – charged per million characters processed.
• Neural (NTTS) voices – slightly higher rate due to advanced quality.
• No upfront costs; you are billed only for usage.

Getting Started

To begin using Amazon Polly:

# Example using AWS CLI
aws polly synthesize-speech \
    --output-format mp3 \
    --voice-id Joanna \
    --text "Hello, welcome to Amazon Polly!" \
    output.mp3

For more detailed guidance, refer to the official documentation:

Amazon Polly – Official AWS Documentation