Amazon Polly upgrades Generative engine with 14 new voices, Hindi and Finnish
AWS has upgraded the Amazon Polly Generative engine to produce more expressive and more accurate speech with low latency. The update adds 14 new voices across 9 locales, including the first generally available Generative voices in Hindi and Finnish.
- The Amazon Polly Generative engine upgrade adds 14 new voices across 9 locales.
- Hindi and Finnish get generally available Generative voices for the first time.
- The catalog totals 57 generative voices across 11 languages and 25 locales, in 11 AWS Regions including GovCloud (US-West).
- Existing voice names and API calls are unchanged, and AWS says the price stays the same.
- Bi-Di Streaming API supports real-time uses such as voice agents.
A drop-in upgrade for existing voices
According to AWS, the upgrade is generally available in production and works as a drop-in replacement for existing generative voices. Voice names and API calls stay the same, so current applications continue to work without code changes. For apps that already use Amazon Polly Generative voices, the upgrade happens in place.
Amazon Polly is a fully managed AWS service that converts text into speech for contact centers, applications built on large language model (LLM) agents, media and entertainment, e-learning and accessibility, among other uses.
AWS says the voices now reflect emotion and prosody better based on the text input, without manual setup. Its sample audio shows the same sentence, "Your package arrived early," delivered in neutral, uncertain and surprised styles. The company also highlights more accurate reading of numbers, currency and addresses, demonstrated with an order confirmation that includes a tracking number, date, time, price and street address.
Larger catalog and new languages
The Generative engine now totals 57 generative voices across 11 languages and 25 locales. The 14 new voices are:
- US English: Kenneth, Nate
- Australian English: Russell, Curtis
- Indian English: Kiara, Arjun
- German: Tina
- US Spanish: Carlos
- Brazilian Portuguese: Leo, Carolina
- Korean: Hyunduk
- Hindi: Kiara, Arjun
- Finnish: Suvi
Hindi and Finnish are the net new languages on the Generative engine. The engine has also expanded to AWS GovCloud (US-West), bringing availability to 11 AWS Regions.
Pricing, APIs and intended uses
AWS states that the improved quality comes at the same price: "no cost increase, no new SKU, and no changes to your existing integration." Pricing remains pay-as-you-go, and static prompts that are synthesized can be cached and replayed at no additional cost.
New applications can use the same SynthesizeSpeech API to reach the larger voice catalog. The Bi-Di Streaming API StartSpeechSynthesisStream lets developers stream text in and receive audio back at the same time, which AWS describes as well suited to real-time uses such as voice agents and game characters. Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) is supported for finer control. Access is available through the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI and the AWS SDKs.
AWS lists several target scenarios. In contact centers, correct readback of tracking numbers and confirmation codes can help calls resolve in self-service. In cascaded voice agents, LLM text can be converted to speech and streamed over WebSockets or telephony channels. Other use cases include media localization and dubbing, e-learning narration, accessibility and voice-enabled kiosks, games and IoT devices.
Customer feedback and what it means
Sanoma Media Finland, which uses Polly to turn news articles into audio, gave a testimonial. Product Manager Justus Reinikainen said the company publishes over 10,000 articles per month using Polly's Finnish neural voice. He said that, based on testing, Suvi's new generative voice is "a clear improvement over the previous neural voice."
For existing Polly users, the practical effect is that better voice quality arrives without migration work or a price change. For teams building multilingual or real-time voice products, the added Hindi and Finnish voices and the wider locale coverage extend what a single pipeline can serve, according to AWS.
