These New Audible Enhancements Mean Less Searching and More Listening

Audible customers are able to find the listen that perfectly fits their interests and mood even more easily, thanks to recent enhancements to Maven, our AI-powered search tool, and tags, plus a new integration with Goodreads.

The updated Maven experience allows users to engage in back-and-forth conversations to home in on what they’re searching for and ask for more information about specific titles. The enhancements build on Maven’s existing ability to understand natural-language commands like “I’m looking for an uplifting fiction novel with a female protagonist,” or “show me fantasy audiobooks that I can complete on an eight-hour road trip,” and give tailored suggestions. Customers can engage with Maven on every page of Audible’s website, via the chat widget, and in the Audible app’s Discover tab or home page, as well as on each title’s product page. And as these conversations are saved for 24 hours, customers can pause and return to their search journeys as needed.

Maven also makes use of tags, which pull on customer reviews to describe content—such as thrilling suspense, strong female characters, feel-good, thought-provoking, and more—allowing customers to browse audiobooks not only by genre and topic, but by qualities like mood and specific interests, like small-town fiction or paranormal romance. Tags are featured on every title’s product page, allowing users to quickly get a sense of a potential listen. Throughout the Audible app’s Discover tab, users may also select tags to filter their search and discover relevant content.

Audible listeners have been enjoying interacting with Maven since we launched it in beta for US app users last year. So far, about 16 percent of conversational searches have included format-specific criteria unrelated to genre, like narration styles (full cast vs. solo narrator), listening time, and inclusion in celebrity book clubs. Others are using Maven to dig into the nuances of a genre, like the 15 percent of searches for romance, our most popular genre, where users are requesting specific features (such as duet narration) and subgenres (like modern western).

And good news for the millions of book lovers who actively use both Audible and Goodreads: an update allows Audible customers to browse, purchase and play books that are on their Goodreads Want to Read shelf, right from their Audible library. Once a Goodreads account is connected to Amazon (which can be done in the Goodreads account settings), the Want to Read shelf will automatically appear in the customer’s Audible library, eliminating the need to switch to another app and creating a more seamless way to get into a good listen.

Continued enhancements like these make audiobook discovery faster, easier and more accurate, so customers can spend less time searching and more time listening.

These features are still new and may not always get it exactly right, but our AI is a fast learner, and we are excited to continue to enhance its functionality over time.