ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is an AI audio and voice company, best known for realistic AI voice generation, that has expanded into a broader "Creative" and "Agents" platform. It was founded in London in 2022 by childhood friends Mati Staniszewski (CEO) and Piotr Dąbkowski (CTO), both from Poland, who have said the idea grew out of frustration with poorly dubbed foreign films. By 2026 the company had grown to roughly 400 employees, reported that 41% of Fortune 500 companies use its products, and raised a $500 million Series D led by Sequoia Capital in February 2026 at an $11 billion valuation — more than tripling its valuation from a year earlier, and bringing total funding to $781 million across five rounds.

The product is split into two platforms. ElevenCreative covers speech, sound, image, and video: Voice v3 (the company's most expressive text-to-speech model), Scribe v2 for speech-to-text, Voice Design and Instant/Professional Voice Cloning, a Voice Isolator and Voice Changer, AI Sound Effects, AI Music (with Music v2 adding more control over song structure), and image/video generation, plus production tools like Studio, Dubbing (across dozens of languages), Voice Library, and Productions for full-scale localization workflows. ElevenAgents is the company's conversational AI platform for deploying voice-native AI agents across phone, WhatsApp, and embedded web chat — with 2026 additions including Templates, Experiments, Guardrails 2.0, multimodal WhatsApp support, and Speech Engine (launched May 20, 2026), which wraps an existing text chat agent into a voice agent from a single prompt.

1. Sign up at elevenlabs.io — the Free plan includes 10,000 credits per month with no payment required, covering Text to Speech, Speech to Text, Sound Effects, Voice Design, Music, Productions, and Image generation at limited volume.
2. For voice work, generate speech from text with Voice v3, clone a voice (Instant on Starter, Professional on Creator and above), or use the Voice Isolator/Voice Changer to clean up or transform existing audio.
3. For content production, use Studio to combine narration, music, sound effects, video, and captions on one timeline, or Dubbing to localize content into other languages.
4. To build a voice agent, use ElevenAgents: define the agent's behavior with Workflows and Guardrails, test it with Experiments, and deploy it across phone, WhatsApp, or an embedded web chat widget — or use Speech Engine to turn an existing text-based chat agent into a voice agent from a single prompt.
5. Track your monthly credit usage (Free through Business plans are credit-based) and upgrade to Starter, Creator, Pro, Scale, or Business as usage grows, or contact sales for Enterprise (custom credit allocation, HIPAA support, custom SSO, DPA/SLAs).

• Generating realistic AI voiceovers and narration for video, podcasts, and audiobooks using Voice v3.
• Cloning a specific voice (a narrator, a brand voice, a public figure with consent) for consistent use across content.
• Localizing video or audio content into other languages with Dubbing, without re-recording with human voice actors.
• Deploying a voice-native customer service or sales agent across phone, WhatsApp, and web chat via ElevenAgents, or converting an existing text-based chat agent into a voice agent with Speech Engine.
• Producing full multimedia pieces — narration, music, sound effects, video, and captions on one timeline — in Studio.
• Enterprise customer experience, sales, marketing, and internal workflow automation using interactive voice agents, a focus area the company doubled down on with its February 2026 funding round.