AI voice is infiltrating our digital lives in the same way rain droplets infiltrate the soil in an oncoming downpour. The AI voice generator market is expected to shoot from US $1.5 billion in 2023 to $6.4 billion by 2033. Bring on the storm.
We all understand the opportunities generative AI presents for content creators globally, whether it’s ideation, timesaving or text production. A voice generator, specifically, helps brands and creators add depth and accessibility to their content through audio storytelling.
ElevenLabs is one of the AI-powered text-to-speech (TTS) and voice-generation leaders driving the market change, with 41% of Fortune 500 company employees using their products to create audio content at scale.
Want to follow suit with an army of media to reach new audiences and conquer otherworldly digital marketing empires? We’re here to explore the tool and figure out why its following is so powerful.
What Is ElevenLabs?
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs leverages TTS technology to create natural-sounding audio. It converts the visual to airwaves, translating from multiple languages and helping reach audiences who, you know, prefer listening over reading. By harnessing deep learning, ElevenLabs can help you synthesize written text like articles — or even your own voice — into human-like AI vocal narratives to engage your audience.
“We’re building cutting-edge technology to make content accessible across languages — and voices — to enable everyone to connect with information and stories that matter,” ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski says.
The platform’s features include:
- AI text-to-speech: Convert written text into speech sounds that imitate the human voice with 120+ custom voices across 29 languages and 50 accents.
- AI voice cloning: Through deep learning, ElevenLabs can help you simulate a specific person’s voice (including your own) to generate multitudes of content without re-recording. All you need is a 30-minute audio sample.
- Customization tools: Fine-tune pitch, pace, inflection, emotion and more to achieve a realistic AI voice delivery for your projects.
- API access: With text-to-speech API, you can integrate AI voices into various applications, including websites, mobile apps and IoT devices.
- AI dubbing: Instantly dub and translate content into new languages to expand your global audience.
Where Can I Use ElevenLabs?
Like many other AI tools, AI voice generation serves across a plethora of digital marketing initiatives. Anywhere you need voiceovers, such as short narrated video content, online courses or entire videos, voice AI can make the process more efficient than, say, doing it yourself or hiring voice actors. Real-world examples where ElevenLabs features translate into time saving and increased reach are:
- Websites: Integrating TTS is creating new inclusivity benchmarks as it supports those with visual impairments or disabilities, such as dyslexia, to easily access online content. On a different note, it also provides language support, catering to diverse audiences and non-native speakers.
- Social media: As younger generations move to social video platforms to engage with brands, short-form video offers the highest ROI, with a quarter of marketers making greater investments in short-form than any other format in 2024. What better way to amplify trust and engagement than epic storytelling videos?
- Podcasts: Create smooth, captivating audio during your podcast’s opening and closing segments. AI voice can also make compelling ads throughout episodes.
- eLearning: Learners engaging with instructional content — whether in your latest course or YouTube video — can now listen, rather than read. This means that AI voice helps address different learning styles. Many platforms also offer an AI video generator tool to actually make the content for you.
- Audiobooks: Bring stories to life with dynamic narratives and storytelling and improve efficiency through lifelike AI voice technology.
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ElevenLabs Reviews: The Good, the Bad and the Alternatives
It’s not hard to imagine how ElevenLabs AI voice design could inject a whole new dimension into the digital marketing world. But is the hype really what they say it is? Let’s tap into the voice of the people and see what ElevenLabs reviews have to say about its key features.
Pro: High-Quality Voice Library
Over 120 preset voices and voice cloning capabilities allow the content creator to access high-quality custom voices for video scripts stat. ElevenLab’s AI voiceovers’ emotive inflection and natural-sounding expression are generally applauded.
Pro: Free Trial
While the platform does have a pricing plan, new users can take it for a spin with a free trial before committing to more advanced features in the paid version. The free plan offers 10 minutes of TTS monthly with translation features, automatic dubbing, API access and more.
Con: Tonal Inconsistencies
ElevenLab’s tonal voice quality can vary, lending friction to the process for some users. “The only tricky part is about getting the right tone, sometimes you need to split the phrases and also every time you hit the recording button it shows a different tone of voice,” says Brafton’s very own Motion Designer, Tiago Berezoski. The fallback here is that editing can crunch into the clock, tainting the workflow with similar challenges to DIY audio and voice actors.
Pro: User-Friendly Interface
User experience is a big one when it comes to using generative AI. With a highly intuitive interface, ElevenLabs is an accessible tool for marketers of all experience levels. Meaning, if you’re thinking about integrating more short-form videos into your own strategy, it won’t take eons to learn the ropes.
Con: Less Language Support Than Competitors
ElevenLabs isn’t the only AI-generated voice tool on the market, and if you’re targeting global audiences and non-native speakers, alternatives with more comprehensive translation capabilities might hit the mark you really need. Below, we’ll talk about some competitors with more advanced language support.
Pro: Customization Capabilities
While tonal inconsistencies are a grating point for some users, you still have the ability to adjust almost every aspect of the Ai voice to get the sound your brand truly wants. If you can think of any way to improve the audio, you can get it done with ElevenLabs.
Con: Pricing Structure
The ElevenLabs pricing structure is broad but generally sits above the competitive benchmark for professional use. Here’s what you’ll get:
- Starter plan | $5/month: 30 minutes of TTS monthly, limited voice cloning, licensing to use ElevenLabs for commercial use and access to the dubbing studio.
- Creator plan | $11/month: 100 minutes of TTS monthly, professional voice cloning, creating long-form video projects and Audio Native to narrate websites and blogs.
- Pro plan | $99/month: 500 minutes of TTS monthly, higher quality audio outputs and access to the analytics dashboard.
- Scale plan | $330/month: 2,000 minutes of TTS monthly with priority support.
- Enterprise plan | $1,320/month: 11,000 minutes of TTS monthly, Turbo model at $50/million characters and 3 professional voice clones.
Pro: Enhanced Workflow
There are plenty of creative ways to produce new content and improve your workflow with ElevenLabs. For example, at Brafton, we mainly use it to record voice adjustments for our videos. Think words or phrases you need to polish quickly, instead of rerecording the entire clip.
When we’re in the recording phase, we also use AI audio to preview the voiceovers and advance the animation process simultaneously while working on voice. Better efficiency? I’ll take three, please.
ElevenLabs Alternatives
Now, I’m not just here to sing high praises about ElevenLabs AI voice generation: There are others on the market. As promised, let’s dive into a few of your options in no particular order:
- Synthesia: Going the extra mile with not only voiceovers but over 230 AI avatars to feature in videos for you, Synthesia offers a solution for learning and development, advanced customer service and sales enablement. With 140+ languages and more affordable pricing, this is a good option for those who want to scale their global reach fast.
- HeyGen: Similar to the above, HeyGen allows you to choose an avatar (or create your own), and then record or select your AI voice. If you want to be among the 90% of marketers who say personalization contributes to profitability, HeyGen helps you attract more qualified leads and increase conversion rates through targeted, personalized videos.
- Fliki: A comprehensive idea-to-video tool, sweeping PowerPoint presentations, tweets, blogs and products, Fliki produces audio content across all your media. There are 850+ voices, 77 languages and 100+ regional dialects for you to use, so this is a cost-effective and fast option for those hyper-targeting niche audiences.
Is ElevenLabs Right for You?
If you’re looking to expand reach, personalize and build trust with wider audiences through short or long-form video, there’s zero harm in signing up and giving the free version a try. Depending on your content creation direction, ElevenLabs can slice your budgets, free up time for core production and produce glowing results across your digital marketing strategy.
The tool caters to brand and marketing needs amidst a growing taste for consumer audio. It works for team Brafton and could create opportunities for you, too. So, take a shot and see how it can expand your business impact.