ElevenLabs is one of the best startups at creating synthetic AI speech
ElevenLabs is a British-Polish AI company specialising in advanced speech synthesis. Its AI-powered text-to-speech (TTS) tech generates natural, emotive, and highly realistic voiceovers across 32 languages (and counting), making it a powerful tool for audiobook narration, video voiceovers, and accessibility applications.
The company's platform also offers voice cloning, enabling users to replicate specific voices while maintaining expressive qualities.
By focusing on context-aware speech generation, ElevenLabs is revolutionizing how we interact with AI-generated audio in entertainment, education, and business settings.
This article was correct as of February 2025. AI tools are updated regularly and it is possible that some features have changed since this article was written. Some features may also only be available in certain countries.
Founded in 2022 by former Google engineer Piotr DÄ…bkowski and former Palantir strategist Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs has quickly become a leader in AI-generated speech.
The company's text-to-speech models are trained to understand context, tone, and emotion, resulting in highly realistic voice generation, and its AI tool allows users to convert written text into speech that mimics human intonation and natural pauses.
ElevenLabs also offers voice cloning, which lets users replicate and fine-tune a voice for personalized applications. Its voice models have been used in content creation, accessibility tools for the visually impaired, and even in gaming.
In January 2025, ElevenLabs raised a massive $180 million Series C funding round led by some notable VCs, including Andreessen Horowitz, at a $3.3 billion valuation, ensuring the company will have plenty of cash to build its products.
ElevenLabs is widely used in entertainment, content creation, and accessibility.
Audiobook publishers use the tool to generate natural voice narrations, while YouTubers and video creators employ it for voiceovers. Podcasters meanwhile utilise its voice cloning for consistent narration, and game developers integrate AI voices for interactive storytelling.
Beyond media, ElevenLabs is useful for customer service AI, allowing businesses to create lifelike automated assistants. Educational platforms leverage it to produce engaging voice content for e-learning modules.
ElevenLabs' ability to generate multilingual and emotionally expressive voices makes it valuable for applications where human-like, customisable AI speech is required, which is a main reason the tool is a hit.
ElevenLabs is not a chatbot. While it can generate speech, it doesn't hold real-time conversations like ChatGPT or Siri and also isn't designed for AI-generated music, image creation, or video deepfakes.
While its AI voices are impressive, they may struggle with extremely nuanced emotional performances required in acting or high-drama storytelling.
Additionally, there are ethical concerns with voice cloning, particularly regarding impersonation risks for the deceased and other marginalised groups.
ElevenLabs offers multiple pricing tiers. The free plan allows limited use, but paid subscriptions unlock more advanced features, many of which will be essential in professional contexts.
For larger companies, custom enterprise pricing is available, and users can also purchase additional character quotas as needed, making the tiers a little more flexible.
ElevenLabs is accessible via a web browser, allowing users to create AI-generated speech directly online, and also offers API integration, enabling developers to add voice AI to apps.
The ElevenLabs Reader App for iOS and Android allows users to listen to AI-narrated content on the go.
ElevenLabs is widely praised for its high-quality, natural-sounding AI voices, offering impressive emotional depth and contextual awareness. Some users also appreciate its multilingual support, and its voice cloning technology is a standout feature, allowing for customisation and personalisation.
However, some drawbacks exist.
While its voices are lifelike, they can still sound slightly robotic in highly emotional or complex speech. Ethical concerns around AI voice cloning misuse remain, and its pricing structure may not suit casual users who only need occasional text-to-speech conversion.
ElevenLabs is an excellent choice for content creators who need high-quality AI-generated speech for audiobooks, podcasts, and video narrations. Its multilingual capabilities make it particularly useful for businesses producing international content or accessibility tools.
Companies can also benefit from its lifelike AI voices for automated customer service applications. Additionally, developers looking to integrate realistic speech synthesis into their apps can use ElevenLabs' API for seamless integration.
If you need scalable, expressive voice AI, ElevenLabs is one of the best options available in 2025.
ElevenLabs is not designed for real-time chatbot interactions, making it unsuitable if you need an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Alexa.
It also may not fully capture the nuanced emotions required for acting or dramatic storytelling, where a human voice actor would be more appropriate.
Finally, if you're looking for image generation, AI video creation, or coding assistance, ElevenLabs won't meet your needs.
