How to generate speech from text with Picsart AI Playground

Generating speech from text takes three decisions: which voice engine reads your script, which voice it uses, and how you write the script so it sounds like a person rather than a machine. The engines differ more than their names suggest, and picking the wrong one costs you a regeneration.

Choosing the right text to speech model

Five voice engines cover most of what people need from text to speech, and they sort cleanly by what you are making.

Model selection at a glance

Gemini TTS for the widest voice selection

Google’s native text to speech, and the one to start with when you want a specific voice character rather than a generic one.

• 30 voices, so whatever your script needs, something in the set is close
• Multilingual on both models
• Gemini 2.5 Pro TTS adds multi-speaker, so a two-person conversation comes out of one generation

Eleven v3 for performed, expressive reads

This one acts a script rather than reading it, and it has the widest language coverage here.

• 70+ languages
• Audio tags written inline in square brackets, like [whispers] or [laughs], change delivery exactly where they sit
• Multi-speaker dialogue, with several characters interacting in one generation
• 5,000 characters per generation, and an experimental label, which is the price of being newest

ElevenLabs points it at three jobs: character discussions, audiobook production and emotional dialogue.

Eleven Multilingual v2 for long-form narration

The steady one. On a long recording, a voice that holds its character start to finish beats a more expressive one that drifts.

• 10,000 characters per generation, roughly ten minutes, so a full chapter goes through in one pass
• 29 languages, holding one voice identity and accent as the language changes
• Built for gaming and animation voiceovers, corporate video and e-learning

Read those 29 closely, because several are regional variants. English covers the USA, UK, Australia and Canada. French covers France and Canada, Portuguese covers Brazil and Portugal, Spanish covers Spain and Mexico, Arabic covers Saudi Arabia and the UAE. For a campaign aimed at one market, that distinction is the whole ballgame.

Grok TTS for direct control over delivery

Five voices, named Ara, Eve, Leo, Rex and Sal, with Eve as the default. A smaller palette than Gemini, which makes the choice quicker rather than worse.

• Inline tags mark a single moment: [pause], [long-pause], [laugh]. They cover pauses, laughter and crying, mouth sounds and breathing.
• Wrapping tags change a whole phrase, written as <whisper>text</whisper>. They cover volume, intensity, pitch, speed and vocal style.
• 20 languages, with automatic detection if you would rather not pick one
• 15,000 characters per request, the most of any engine here, plus voice cloning from a short reference clip

So I walked in and [pause] there it was. [laugh] I honestly could
not believe it! <whisper>It was a secret the whole time.</whisper>

Four habits get the most from tags: put an inline tag where the expression would naturally happen, combine tags with punctuation instead of stacking them, wrap complete phrases rather than single words, and nest styles for effect with <slow><soft>Goodnight, sleep well.</soft></slow>.

Seed Audio for cloned voices

Cloning is the core of how these work rather than an addition to a voice list, and the cloned voice holds its identity as the language changes.

• Seed Audio Multilingual covers 20 languages, Seed Audio covers English and Chinese
• Either pick a named voice or clone one from a reference recording
• 3,000-character prompt, returning up to two minutes of audio

That suits one character carrying a project across several markets.

The biggest quality difference comes from the script rather than the engine. Four habits fix most bad output.

Generating speech in Picsart AI Playground

All five engines live in Picsart AI Playground, which means one place, one credit balance, and no switching tools when a project needs a voiceover, a backing track and a sound effect.

That also makes comparing them easy. Run the same two sentences through two engines, and hearing them side by side settles the question faster than any description can.

Generating a voiceover takes a script, an engine and a voice.

1. Open Picsart AI Playground

Every voice engine covered here runs in the same place, so there is nothing to install and no separate account to set up.

Open AI Playground

2. Choose your voice engine

Match it to the job. Eleven v3 for a performed read, Eleven Multilingual v2 for long narration, Gemini 2.5 Flash TTS for the widest voice choice, Gemini 2.5 Pro TTS for two speakers, Grok TTS for tag-level control, Seed Audio for a cloned voice.

3. Write your script

Punctuate the way you want it read, because commas and full stops create the pauses. Spell out acronyms, numbers and product names in the form you want to hear them.

4. Add delivery direction

On Eleven v3 write audio tags inline in square brackets. On Grok TTS use Speech Tags, either inline for a single moment or wrapping to change a whole phrase.

5. Pick a voice

Audition two or three on a couple of sentences of your real script rather than a sample line. A voice that fumbles a product name will keep fumbling it.

6. Generate, then compare

Run the same two sentences through a second engine before committing to a long script. Hearing them side by side settles the choice faster than any description.

Start generating speech

Pick the engine that matches your read, write the script so the punctuation does half the directing, and generate. Open Picsart AI Playground and try two engines on the same two sentences.