Open-source text-to-speech (TTS) tools, such as Coqui TTS, Festival, eSpeak, Mozilla TTS, and MaryTTS, offer cost-effective and customizable alternatives to commercial TTS solutions for conversational AI applications, especially for developers and businesses seeking to avoid licensing restrictions and high costs. These open-source options enable extensive customization, including voice model training and linguistic adjustments, providing flexibility for creating tailored AI-generated voices for various applications, from healthcare assistants to virtual gaming narrators. While commercial TTS platforms like ElevenLabs and Google Cloud TTS deliver high-quality voices, they often incur significant subscription fees and limited customization, making open-source tools a valuable choice for projects needing offline capabilities or low-latency requirements. Open-source solutions are bolstered by a global community that contributes to continuous improvements, ensuring innovations in speech quality and usability. Integration into AI systems involves selecting the appropriate tool based on project needs, optimizing latency for real-time interactions, and using APIs for seamless incorporation into existing frameworks.