Artificial intelligence can now generate speech that could easily be confused with a human voice. ElevenLabs is at the forefront of developing generative AI models that can speak with natural-sounding pauses, emotional inflection and distinctive accents.
What Is ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs is an AI audio platform that generates realistic speech, clones authorized voices, translates and transcribes audio and creates music and sound effects. Creators use it for videos, podcasts and audiobooks, and businesses use its conversational AI agents to handle customer inquiries.
Creators can use its tools to narrate a video, create an audiobook or create voices for characters in a podcast. Businesses, meanwhile, can use its technology to handle routine customer service inquiries, translate marketing materials for international audiences or incorporate voice AI into their own software products.
However, realistic AI-generated speech also raises questions about privacy, consent, fraud and the future of voice-related creative work. Understanding the nuances of ElevenLabs’ technology and its policies can help individuals and organizations determine whether it's the right tool for their needs.
What Is ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs is a London-based company that develops voice and audio generation technology. It builds AI models that generate natural-sounding speech, recognize spoken language, reproduce voices, translate audio and create other forms of audio content.
The company was founded in 2022 by Piotr Dąbkowski, a former Google machine learning engineer, and Mateusz Staniszewski, an ex-Palantir strategist. The Polish co-founders initially set out to improve the quality of film dubbing, which led them to develop the backbone of their audio AI models. The company is best known for developing text-to-speech technology that generates natural-sounding speech, complete with pauses and emotional expression. It has since broadened its offerings to include voice cloning, conversational AI agents, music, sound effects and speech transcription. Its models can now speak, listen and translate in more than 90 languages.
ElevenLabs’ technology was initially popular with creators, but it has become increasingly popular with enterprise customers, which now make up about 55 percent of its roughly $600 million in annual recurring revenue. ElevenLabs’ conversational agents handle more than 15 million conversations per week, disbursing refunds, renewing insurance policies and upgrading phone plans on behalf of the world’s largest tech, insurance and telecom companies. The company announced in September 2026 that it is valued at $22 billion, and it has been reported the company aims to go public in 2028.
What Are ElevenLabs’ Products?
ElevenLabs’ offerings can be understood through three main product families, each designed for a different type of user or workflow.
ElevenCreative
ElevenCreative provides no-code tools for generating, editing and localizing audio and visual content. It’s designed primarily for creators, producers, marketing teams and media companies that need to produce content without managing separate tools for every task.
Its capabilities include:
Text-to-speech: Converts scripts and other written material into spoken audio using a range of different vocal styles, accents and deliveries.
Voice cloning: Reproduces a user’s voice with AI or generates a new voice based on a written description.
AI dubbing: Translates audio and video into more than 90 languages.
Music and sound effects: Generates original audio for videos, games, advertisements and other projects.
Image and video generation: Creates visual assets and videos using integrated generative AI models.
Voice changing and audio editing: Transforms existing recordings with a different voice or refines audio by clearing up any imperfections.
ElevenCreative also includes Studio, a browser-based production workspace that allows users to transform voice, music, sound effects, captions and video into finished assets.
ElevenAgents
ElevenAgents is a platform for building, deploying and managing conversational AI agents that can provide customer support and other tasks. An AI agent could, for example, answer customer questions, schedule appointments or help process routine service requests, escalating more complex tasks to a human employee.
Businesses can configure agents with instructions, connect them to external tools and software, and establish guardrails to influence how they respond. The company says its agents can handle interruptions, manage conversational turn-taking and ground responses in a knowledge base specific to that company.
ElevenLabs also offers Reception AI, a purpose-built, ready-to-deploy agent that can handle many of the duties of a phone receptionist, such as fielding incoming calls and other routine administrative tasks.
ElevenAPI
ElevenAPI allows software developers to integrate text-to-speech, transcription and other generative audio capabilities into their own applications via API. This gives developers the technical control, flexibility and customization they need to create a specific software product.
For example, a developer building a language learning app could integrate ElevenLabs’ API to let users listen to vocabulary, lessons and example conversations in natural-sounding voices. The app could also use speech-to-text to transcribe the language learner’s spoken responses. Both features would work directly within the app’s existing interface, with ElevenLabs providing the underlying audio technology through its API.
What Is ElevenLabs Used For?
ElevenLabs has applications across customer service, content creation, software development and other industries.
Customer Service and Business Operations
Businesses can deploy conversational AI agents to answer calls, respond to common questions, schedule appointments and help customers navigate routine workflows. These applications can be particularly useful for providing service outside business hours or answering commonly asked questions, freeing up customer service representatives to handle more complex inquiries.
Video Production and Social Media
Creators can use ElevenLabs to generate narration for YouTube videos, social media posts, advertisements and educational content. Instead of recording every voiceover themselves, they can produce speech from scripts and make revisions by editing text. Creators can also use ElevenLabs’ tools to generate sound effects or translate materials into different languages.
Audiobooks and Podcasts
Publishers and independent authors can use text-to-speech tools to produce audiobooks at minimal expense. With ElevenReader, the company’s subscription-based audiobook app, users can create narrations for their own documents and access audiobooks read aloud by AI narrators, some of which can be customized to meet the listeners’ preferences. Podcasters can also use ElevenLabs’ tools to transform recorded voices or create localized versions of their shows.
Software Development
Developers can integrate ElevenLabs’ capabilities into applications using its APIs and software development tools. Developers can use these tools to incorporate voice-enabled interfaces, transcription features and real-time conversational agents into a software application. Rather than building every audio-processing component from scratch, developers can use the company's existing infrastructure and configure it for their needs.
Music Creation
ElevenLabs is experimenting with a foray into the music world. The company announced in September 2026 that it will partner with Universal Music Group to launch an AI-powered music creation platform, giving fans a way to remix and mashup music from participating artists. The two companies also plan to collaborate in the development of AI audio products for artists.
Global Communications
Companies producing training materials, marketing videos or educational resources for international audiences can use AI dubbing to create materials in multiple languages without arranging separate recording sessions for every market. Of course, companies should still review the content for accuracy, particularly in situations involving specialized terminology, culturally specific references or legally significant information.
Accessibility and Voice Restoration
Speech generation tools can provide spoken access to written material for people who are blind or have low vision. AI voice generation can also help people communicate when illness or injury has affected their ability to speak. By synthesizing recordings taken before they lost their voice, these individuals can communicate with a more authentic, personalized voice instead of a generic computer-generated voice.
Benefits of ElevenLabs
One of ElevenLabs’ biggest advantages is the range of audio-related tasks it supports within a single platform. A creator or business can generate speech, edit voices, transcribe recordings and translate content without necessarily relying on separate providers for every step.
Efficiency is another major benefit. Generating narration from a script can be faster than coordinating recording sessions, especially when a project requires many revisions, multiple speakers or different languages. AI voice agents can also respond to routine business inquiries without requiring a human employee to handle every interaction.
The technology offers considerable flexibility. Users can select an existing voice, create a custom voice or clone a voice with appropriate authorization. Different models are optimized for different needs, including expressive narration and lower-latency conversational applications. This gives creators and developers options for balancing authenticity, speed and cost.
Concerns About ElevenLabs’ Voice AI
Despites its technological innovation and business benefits, ElevenLabs' voice AI technology has drawn scrutiny over its potential for fraud and misinformation, its data privacy practices and its impact on working voice actors.
Fraud and Misinformation
Voice cloning can create an audio recording of someone saying something they never actually said, which could be used to facilitate fraud or spread misinformation.
In 2024, ElevenLabs came under fire when a political consultant cloned then-President Joe Biden’s voice for a robocall campaign that discouraged New Hampshire voters from voting in the presidential primary. The Federal Communications Commission imposed a $6 million fine on the political consultant responsible. ElevenLabs, meanwhile, has restricted clones of certain public figures’ voices and required consent confirmation for voice cloning. It’s also developed an AI Speech Classifier for checking whether audio may have been generated using its technology.
Elected officials have publicly questioned what ElevenLabs and other AI voice companies are doing to prevent scammers from cloning someone’s voice, like a friend or family member, to obtain money or gain access to sensitive information.
Privacy and Data Handling
By default, ElevenLabs retains voice recordings and other personal data to train its AI models. The company says it does not use data from enterprise customers for AI training, and on some products, it offers a “Zero Retention Mode” that deletes data once the request is completed. The company also gives non-enterprise users the option to opt out of sharing their data for AI training.
Similar to other AI companies, ElevenLabs uses publicly available or third-party information to train its models, which has raised concerns about unauthorized usage. In May 2026, a group of Chicago journalists, podcasters and voice actors sued ElevenLabs and eight other big tech companies for allegedly using their voices to train AI models. Filing their lawsuit in Illinois, which has the strongest biometric privacy laws in the country, the plaintiffs claimed ElevenLabs and other tech companies stole their “voiceprint,” which they say is a mathematical representation of their unique voice.
Undermining Artists
When actor Michael Caine agreed to have his voice cloned for an audiobook retelling of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” some in the media industry began to wonder if AI audiobooks would become a trend that would undermine the value of working voice actors.
But AI audiobooks haven't reduced the demand for voice actors yet, as many still find actors to be more emotive than even ElevenLabs’ most advanced models. Only 16 percent of audiobook listeners have reported listening to an AI-voiced audiobook, according to an Audio Publishers Association survey, and AI audiobooks made up less than half of a percent of the audiobook industry’s revenue in 2025.
Is ElevenLabs Safe to Use?
ElevenLabs can be used safely for many legitimate creative and business purposes, but safety depends on how the technology is used and what information users provide.
Perhaps the biggest area of concern is data privacy. ElevenLabs says that the company may retain and train its AI on user data unless users have opted out or are using an enterprise-level subscription. Users should be mindful of these policies, particularly if they are submitting confidential business information or personal details. Businesses handling regulated information should verify that their chosen product and contractual arrangements meet their security and compliance requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs is an artificial intelligence company that develops tools for generating, editing and processing audio. Its products help creators produce voiceovers, businesses automate customer service conversations and developers integrate AI-powered voice capabilities into their applications.
Is ElevenLabs an AI voice generator?
Yes. ElevenLabs is best known for its AI voice-generation technology, which converts written text into natural-sounding speech. It also offers voice cloning, speech-to-text transcription, AI dubbing, music generation, sound effects and conversational AI tools.
Can ElevenLabs clone voices?
Yes. ElevenLabs offers AI voice cloning that can reproduce a person's vocal characteristics and generate new speech in that voice. Instant Voice Cloning is available on paid Starter plans and above, while Professional Voice Cloning requires a higher-tier subscription. Users must prove they have appropriate authorization to clone a voice.
Is ElevenLabs free to use?
ElevenLabs offers a free plan with 10,000 monthly credits and access to features such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, voice design and sound effects. However, the free plan has usage limits and does not include a commercial license.
Can ElevenLabs be used commercially?
Yes, but generally only content generated under an eligible paid subscription can be used commercially. ElevenLabs' free plan permits noncommercial use with attribution, while paid plans include commercial licensing, subject to applicable terms, intellectual property rights and restrictions. Certain beta features may be excluded.
