ElevenLabs, founded three years ago in the United Kingdom by Poles Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbowski, develops technology that uses artificial intelligence to generate diverse voices in 70 languages. The company is already valued at more than USD 6.6 billion and counts 50 million monthly active users, serving 75% of firms in the Fortune 500 list, according to a South Korean newspaper.
South Korea is to become the key base for ElevenLabs’ Asian expansion, the South Korean daily Chosun reported. It said the country’s voice AI market is estimated at about a quarter of a billion U.S. dollars. ElevenLabs’ voice synthesis technology enables dubbing or narration without human voice-over artists and allows AI to handle call centers, shortening waiting times and cutting costs, the paper said.
The Polish company has also signed a deal with Oscar-winning actors Michael Caine, 92, and Matthew McConaughey, 56, securing licenses to clone their voices with AI. The agreement, signed on Nov. 13 this year, comes as Hollywood is locked in conflict with the AI industry.
ElevenLabs is simultaneously celebrating the launch of its “Iconic Voice Marketplace” platform and finding itself in the crossfire of a wider battle over identity and AI technologies. The platform allows users, for a fee, to legally use the perfectly recreated voices of well-known figures, including John Wayne with the consent of his heirs.
Under the deal, anyone who pays can rent Caine’s or McConaughey’s digitally cloned voices for their own projects, while the actors retain control over their image and receive royalties. McConaughey has reportedly also invested in ElevenLabs.
Caine said in media comments that ElevenLabs uses innovation to “celebrate humanity”. “It’s not about replacing voices, but about enhancing and preserving them for the future,” the actor declared.
ElevenLabs has rapidly become one of the world’s best-known AI startups. It began operating in 2022 and reached “unicorn” status, with a valuation of $1 billion, in just two years. Its customers include creative and media companies, among them major outlets such as The Washington Post and The New Yorker.
(jh)
Source: IAR, INNPoland