Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing industries across the globe, with GrandViewResearch highlighting the AI market’s current valuation at $136.6 billion—projected to surge to $1.81 trillion by 2030. At the forefront of this innovation is ElevenLabs, a burgeoning company that specializes in cutting-edge AI speech technology.
ElevenLabs’ Prime Voice AI stands out by offering text-to-speech, voice cloning, and nuanced vocal expressions that rival natural human speech. It is remarkable at tailoring audio content to the context, whether it be for audiobooks, podcasts, newsletters, blogs, and more.
In this article, we go show you the power of ElevenLabs tech, with some stunning examples.
What is Eleven Labs AI Voice Technology?
ElevenLabs is a US-based software company that specializes in developing natural-sounding speech synthesis and text-to-speech software using artificial intelligence and deep learning.
The company was co-founded last year by Piotr Dabkowski, who is a former Google machine learning engineer, and Mati Staniszewski, an ex-Palantir deployment strategist.
Following its launch in January of 2023, ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI has gained momentum among its users, and is being commended for its voice output quality, fast generation times, and generous free tier.
The model has also been praised for its ability to accurately pronounce names that have unique or uncommon spellings.
The ElevenLabs technology combines advanced AI with emotive capabilities that generate speech in any language and voice. The company has a mission to make on-demand multilingual audio support a reality across many fields, including education, streaming, audiobooks, gaming, movies, and even with real-time conversation.
And even more amazingly, the company has established all of this, despite having no office and only 15 employees.
How Does ElevenLabs Voice AI Work?
ElevenLabs’ speech synthesis technology works by leveraging advanced AI and deep learning models that convert text into life-like speech in any voice and emotion.
Say goodbye to Siri and Alexa, these are much better quality voice models!
Speech Synthesis
The technology is capable of synthesizing vocal emotion and intonation just from text prompts, which contributes to its natural-sounding output.
Here’s an example of ElevenLabs’ speech synthesis, in this case the “Fin” voice talking about alien butterflies from the planet Archon:
Voice Cloning
One of the key features of the technology is its proprietary voice-cloning tool, which uses extensive datasets from a specific speaker’s voice to fine-tune the model. This results in speech that closely mimics the original speaker’s voice.
This company believes that this feature can be particularly valuable in areas like video game creation and media, where more distinct and varied character voices are needed.
Below, we show and explain how this works.
Text-To-Speech
Another standout feature in ElevenLabs’ text-to-speech technology is its Voice Design tool, which can facilitate in the creation of synthetic voices that reflect varied ages, genders, and even regional accents.
In addition to these features, the company’s technology provides users with a variety of text-to-speech (TTS) options, including different voices, speeds, and pitches. Users are also able to customize the output by adding pauses, emphasis, and other linguistic effects.
Here is an example of its power: a synthesized voice reading the first sentence of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit:
That was made using the default settings, and choosing the “Dorothy” voice, a British accent, which ElevenLabs describes as “Pleasant” and tags “Children’s Stories”.
As with all AI models, ElevenLabs is continuously improving its system by adding even more features, such as the ability to add pauses and change the speed of the generated voice overs to produce better sounding natural speech.
There are many options to tweak in these models to customize the voices.
How Can ElevenLabs Be Used?
ElevenLabs’ astounding speech synthesis technology has a wide range of applications that span across many different industries. Some of the applications include:
Text-to-Speech Software
The company’s primary focus is on developing natural-sounding speech synthesis and text-to-speech software. Through its browser-based software platform, ElevenLabs will produce life-like speech for its users by synthesizing vocal emotion and intonation. This means that the software can be used for producing narration, comedy shows, and even AI-focused podcasts.
Here’s a synthesized podcast introduction:
Voice Cloning
Eleven Labs’ AI technology can also be used to create unique voice models for each user, which will ensure a captivating viewing experience. This feature holds particular value in areas like video game creation and media, because you can create distinct and varied character voices.
If you subscribe to any of the plans beyond the Free plan, you can upload voices (that you have the right to use) and use them to generate new audio based on the characteristics of the existing voice.
As an example, I uploaded the first 5 minutes of this famous speech by John F Kennedy (though I ran a noise reduction filter through the audio):
I used that as the source to generate this new audio, a fictitious speech from JFK about unicorns:
It’s remarkable!
It doesn’t sound exactly like JFK. His voice is quite unique, and I didn’t attempt to adjust any of the settings to improve on it. But it’s not that far off, using just a few minutes of source material.
Language Learning
This developing AI technology can even be used as a tool for language learning.
The ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI conversation mode allows users to input basic role playing scenarios, evaluate conversations, and practice proper grammar and word usage.
The practice mode allows users to read sentences, see their pronunciation mistakes, and play the audio of both ElevenLabs and their original audio to compare the differences.
Voice Assistant
Using the AI technology as a voice assistant leverages the ElevenLabs API to generate spoken answers to user queries, which helps users to create an even more interactive and engaging experience.
Video Dubbing
The ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI technology has already been used to generate audio for dubbing videos in different languages, including by social media content creators, because the platform has the capability to accurately replicate almost any accent, in any language.
What Industries Are Using ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI is so versatile that it can generate high-quality audio content for a variety of situation, which is why there are already many different industries implementing its use.
Media
The dominant industry, probably not surprisingly, is media and entertainment, because of the way the AI can be used to generate audio for dubbing videos in different languages, and because it has the capability to accurately replicate almost any accent in any language.
Gaming
This feature holds particular value in areas such as video game creation, as well as broadcast and social media, because of the way that it can create varied character voices.
Podcasts
As an example, popular podcaster Seth Godin has used ElevenLabs to narrate his AI-focused Akimbo podcast, and Inworld, a company that creates AI NPCs, has joined forces with ElevenLabs to bring dynamic voices to their AI NPCs.
Audiobooks and Publishing
The publishing industry is another one that is using ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI to great effect. For example, voice generation is being used to create audiobooks, because the technology enhances digital storytelling by producing high-quality audio content that mirrors human-like intonations.
The AI model can even be adapted to generate audio for news articles, because it can accurately replicate almost any accent, which makes it possible to produce audio content in multiple languages.
Education
The technology is also being used in the education field, because of its language learning capabilities. The ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI conversation mode allows users to give basic role-playing scenarios, as well as evaluate conversations, and practice proper grammar and word usage.
The model’s practice mode even allows users to read sentences, review their pronunciation mistakes, and play the audio along with their original, so that they can compare the two to see what needs tweaking.
Customer Service
ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI can also be used on e-commerce websites to create voice assistants that can help customers navigate the site, and answer their queries or complaints, which will provide them with a more interactive and engaging customer experience.
Healthcare
Finally, but not least, this emerging technology can be applied in healthcare, in order to create voice assistants that can help with patient communication, such as helping them to schedule appointments, remind them to take their medication, answer their queries, and even make things more accessible to people with visual impairments or reading difficulties.
So, as you can see, ElevenLabs’ technology has been designed to benefit a wide range of users — from individual podcasters to multinational conglomerates — to help them create interactive voice experiences for their unique audiences.
The Future of ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs has already proved itself as a world leader in audio AI software, and has raised $19m to continue its voice AI research and product deployment. The company’s mission is to make all content universally accessible in any language and in any voice, in a both a safe and responsible way.
In terms of its future mission, the company is aiming to expand its products to include more languages and features, including a projects tool that will make it easier for users to structure and edit their long-form content.
ElevenLabs is also planning to introduce a mechanism that will allow its users to share voices on the platform, which will create even more opportunities for human-AI collaboration. And its ultimate goal is to make all audio content universally accessible in any language and in any voice.
How Much Does ElevenLabs Cost?
The great news is that you get 30,000 free credits, which is enough to generate a 30,000 characters of text using one of their voices. You can also design your own voices on the free plan. Each month, you’ll get 10,000 more characters of text
But if you want to go beyond that quantity of generation, or use the Voice Cloning tech and some of the more advanced features, you’ll need to pay for a subscription. There are a variety of tiers available, depending on the scale you intend to work with.
Final Thoughts
In a nutshell, ElevenLabs is a speech synthesis technology that can be used in different ways across a variety of industries. The company’s AI model offers its users audio with human-like intonation and inflections that can be adjusted, depending on the content and context.
AI is a rapidly developing field that is transforming many industries, and ElevenLabs has already proved itself as a leading provider of advanced AI speech software. This means ElevenLabs Prime Voice AI is a versatile software that will generate probably the highest quality audio possible that you can use across a range of projects.
