A new feature being added to Pickr this year aims to make technology reporting a little easier to consume by hearing those stories from the writer’s voice.
One of the reasons Pickr exists is to make it easier for people to find quality consumer technology journalism without looking too hard. The name of Pickr literally means to “pick from research”, with research being a critical part of learning about technology, whether it’s concepts or products.
However, technology isn’t something that’s always easy to understand.
It’s why we dive into topics with long form, and why we aim to break down areas into more easily digestible stories so that learning about technological concepts can be easier, more accessible, and better overall.
Over the years, we’ve improved some of the ways we’ve done this to help make life a little easier.
We updated the site design and improved readability, and we even removed ads, a move we think has made the site better overall. Support is still appreciated when offered, but removing the ads makes it easier for everyone to read and consume important topics, especially when the services running the ads aren’t necessarily checking the validity of the ads they run.
Pickr makes changes for the better where it can, and in 2025, we’re experimenting with another change: improving accessibility with AI.
Every time Pickr’s editor goes on radio, you can almost guarantee there’s going to be a story on AI. It’s important to note that artificial intelligence may have its problems, but it’s not to be feared, and so we’re regularly explaining how it can be used to assist people’s lives in the media.
So this year, Pickr is experimenting with AI to make technology stories easier to consume by adding the voice of the journalist so that you can listen to them in that voice as if they were reading the story to you.
We’re beginning to see AI voice readers appear on other articles around the web. Both the AFR and Sydney Morning Herald use them on select articles, but like so many websites, these rely on a generic AI voice. With Pickr’s reader, we’re using the actual voice of the person who wrote the story, with AI joining the dots.
It’s worth pointing out that we’re not using artificial intelligence to write stories — all of that is 100 percent human, and we’re proud of it. However, we are using a specialised system made with AI to allow the text of a story to be read by an AI based on the writer’s voice.
It’s a step forward for accessibility and for improving how technology journalism is consumed, and it’s something you can try for yourself with this story. You might even be hearing it right now.
We’re still working on the kinks, and it’s not entirely perfect. But to try it out on a supported story, look for the player on supported articles at the very top of the page on mobile, or at the side on desktop. If it’s supported, you’ll see it there, and we’ll keep working on it to make it better.
