Names, versions and owners change fast. Checked October 2026.
In plain words
ElevenLabs is a company and a set of tools, not a chatbot. Its main job is text-to-speech: you paste in text, pick a voice, and it reads the text aloud in a voice that sounds human, with pauses, emphasis and emotion.
It was founded in 2022 by two engineers, Piotr Dąbkowski and Mati Staniszewski, and opened its first public version in January 2023. People use it to narrate audiobooks and videos, to dub a film into another language in a similar voice, and to give AI phone agents a voice. Developers reach the same models through an API.
It can also copy a voice from a recording, which is where care is needed. The same ability that can help someone who has lost their voice speak again can be misused to fake someone else's voice, the audio side of a deepfake.
Everyday example
A voice actor who can read anything
Imagine hiring a skilled voice actor who can read any script you hand them, in any of dozens of languages, happy or serious on request, and can even mimic a voice after hearing a short sample. ElevenLabs offers that as software: type the script, choose the voice and style, and get back an audio file in seconds.
Where the example breaks: A real voice actor understands the story and will refuse to impersonate someone without permission. The software only predicts sounds, and its safeguards against misuse are rules built around it, not judgement.
Latestas of October 2026
- Newest speech models
- Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, launched 28 September 2026, covering more than 90 languages
- Product lines
- ElevenCreative (speech, dubbing, music, sound effects), ElevenAgents (voice agents) and ElevenAPI (for developers)
- Earlier model
- Eleven v3, from June 2025, which introduced inline audio tags such as [whispers]
These details change often. The rest of this page explains what it is, which stays true.
How it actually works
Modern AI speech is made in a few steps.
Read the text for meaning
The model first works out how the text should sound: where sentences end, which words carry stress, whether a line is a question or a joke. Recent models let you add written cues, such as [whispers] or [laughs], to steer the delivery.
Predict the sound
A neural network trained on many hours of recorded speech predicts the audio, piece by piece, as compressed sound tokens or similar units, in the chosen voice.
A voice as a set of numbers
Each voice is captured as a numeric description, much like an embedding. Cloning means estimating those numbers from a sample of someone's speech, so the model can speak new words in that voice.
Listening and speaking together
For voice agents, speech recognition turns a caller's words into text, a language model decides the reply, and text-to-speech speaks it, quickly enough to feel like a conversation.
- Company
- ElevenLabs, founded in 2022 by Piotr Dąbkowski and Mati Staniszewski
- First public beta
- January 2023, for narrating long-form text
- What it makes
- Text-to-speech, voice cloning, dubbing, sound effects and music, plus tools for voice agents
- Typical uses
- Narrating audiobooks and videos, dubbing into other languages, and giving AI phone agents a voice
Copying someone's voice without their consent can be illegal, especially for fraud or impersonation. Treat a surprising voice message, even in a familiar voice, with caution.
Questions people ask
Who founded ElevenLabs?
Piotr Dąbkowski, formerly a machine learning engineer at Google, and Mati Staniszewski, formerly at the software company Palantir, founded it in 2022. They opened the first public beta in January 2023.
Can ElevenLabs speak Hindi and other Indian languages?
ElevenLabs' recent speech models cover dozens of languages; the box above gives the current count. Check its language list for Hindi, Tamil or whichever you need, since quality can differ by language and voice, and try a sample before relying on it.
Is it legal to clone a voice with AI?
Cloning your own voice, or one you have clear permission to use, is the normal case. Copying someone else's voice without consent can break the law in many places, especially for fraud or impersonation, and AI voice services generally forbid it in their terms.
How can I tell if a voice is AI-generated?
Often you cannot by ear. Some companies offer detection tools for audio made with their own systems, and AI watermarking is being tried. The safest habit is to verify unexpected requests, such as urgent money transfers, through a separate channel.