ElevenLabs just rolled out its new Reader app on iOS and Android, letting users listen to any article, PDF, or newsletter read aloud by its lifelike AI voices. It is free to use for the first three months. While it currently only supports English, offline mode and 29 additional languages are already on the roadmap.
ElevenLabs just rolled out a text-to-sound model that generates sound effects, short instrumental tracks, and soundscapes from text prompts. Fine-tuned on Shutterstock's licensed audio library, the tool is now available to all users. Creators and game developers can now spin up custom Foley and background audio without scouring stock libraries.
HarperCollins just teamed up with ElevenLabs to turn select non-English backlist series into audiobooks using AI text-to-speech. Traditional studio recording has historically been far too expensive for older, niche titles, but ElevenLabs' Studio tool can produce a full audiobook in as little as an hour. While human narrators will still handle primary releases, AI is quietly stepping in to revive forgotten catalogs abroad.
ElevenLabs just announced a partnership with rabbit to bring its low-latency, emotionally rich voice models to the pocket-sized r1 companion. Users can simply press a button and speak to execute multi-level tasks like hailing rides and ordering food through rabbit OS. Why it matters: natural-sounding voice is the missing piece in making standalone AI hardware feel like a real assistant rather than a robotic gimmick.
Pika just rolled out Lip Sync powered by ElevenLabs, allowing AI-generated characters' mouths to move in sync with spoken dialogue. Creators can type text prompts or upload their own audio tracks directly. For now, it is available in early access only to Pika Pro subscribers and invited Super Collaborators.
ElevenLabs just partnered with Perplexity to launch Discover Daily, a short-form daily podcast covering breakthroughs in innovation, science, and culture. The show merges Perplexity's real-time search engine with ElevenLabs' synthetic voices to deliver automated audio briefings on the go, available now across major podcast platforms.
ElevenLabs just announced it was selected for the 2024 Disney Accelerator program. The voice AI startup aims to tap into Disney's massive creative sandbox to break down language barriers. Why it matters: Landing a spot with Disney gives ElevenLabs a direct pipeline into Hollywood's biggest media powerhouse.
ElevenLabs just announced that AI Sound Effects are coming soon to its platform. The feature allows creators to generate custom sound effects, ambient audio, and soundscapes from text prompts, expanding the company's toolset beyond voice and music.
ElevenLabs just introduced new safeguards to prevent its AI voice tech from meddling in the 2024 elections. The company rolled out a "no-go voices" safeguard that blocks users from mimicking active political candidates, starting with US and UK races, and explicitly outlawed political robocalls and impersonation chatbots. Why it matters: With critical elections taking place worldwide, the pressure is on AI voice platforms to curb convincing deepfakes before they derail voter trust.
ElevenLabs just rolled out voice monetization, allowing creators to earn passive cash from their AI voice clones in the Voice Library. Users simply upload 30 minutes of audio to build a clone, getting paid whenever paying subscribers generate speech with it. The platform also includes owner verification and daily payout tracking.
Perplexity just partnered with Vercel to plug its online search models directly into the Vercel AI SDK. Developers building JavaScript and TypeScript web apps can now tap into pplx-7b-online and pplx-70b-online to fetch live web data without training cutoffs. Vercel also launched a multi-model AI playground alongside the update.
ElevenLabs just secured an $80M Series B round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, officially crossing into unicorn territory. Alongside the cash infusion, the voice AI leader unveiled Dubbing Studio for full-length films, a marketplace that lets creators monetize their verified AI voices, and an upcoming mobile reader app.
Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan's party just used ElevenLabs to clone his voice for a four-minute campaign speech from behind bars. The virtual rally, generated from his shorthand notes and archive clips, pulled over 500,000 views on YouTube and led the Pakistani government to throttle major social platforms nationwide. Why it matters: Synthetic media is now officially a political workaround against state suppression.
ElevenLabs just launched ElevenLabs Grants to give early-stage startups 11 million free text and dubbing characters per month for three months. To qualify, companies must have fewer than 25 employees and detail their AI voice integration plans, with the company distributing over 100 billion characters in the first wave.
ElevenLabs just rolled out Turbo v2, cutting speech generation latency down to around 400ms—more than twice as fast as its first-gen models. It keeps quality matching Multilingual V2 and adds mulaw 8kHz output for VoIP, making near-instant voice agents feel much closer to real time.
ElevenLabs just launched a unified enterprise AI voice platform split into two engines: ElevenAgents for customer-facing bots and ElevenCreative for high-fidelity audio production. It integrates out of the box with tools like Salesforce and Zendesk, giving companies an easy path to deploy voice agents at scale.
ElevenLabs just teamed up with video generation platform Pictory AI to bring its realistic voice synthesis to automated video editing. Creators can now turn text scripts and blog posts into videos with human-sounding narration, initially focusing on English and German content.
ElevenLabs just rolled out AI Dubbing, a voice translation tool that converts speech into over 20 languages in minutes while keeping the original speaker's exact voice, emotion, and tone. It also automatically distinguishes multiple speakers and filters out background noise.
ElevenLabs just rolled out Projects to let creators turn manuscripts into full-cast audiobooks in minutes. You can upload an ePub, have AI automatically assign distinct voices to each character, and export across 90+ languages. It cuts months of studio recording down to an afternoon.
ElevenLabs just officially wrapped its beta phase and rolled out Eleven Multilingual v2, a foundational speech model supporting nearly 30 languages. It can automatically detect written text across 28 languages and generate authentic, emotional speech while preserving a speaker's unique voice and accent across all of them.
