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ElevenLabs Debuts “Iconic Voice Marketplace”
Mark Twain // Illustration by David Vendrell
AI audio company ElevenLabs announced a celebrity-voice marketplace to complement its flagship voice-licensing subscription business.
The Big Picture: Celebrity (or celebrity-lookalike) chatbots have emerged in recent years with mixed results. While the visual aspect of these AI avatars still leaves much to be desired, audio is an easier benchmark to meet. By placing rights holders front and center, ElevenLabs’ new marketplace could become a major revenue generator for celebrities and their estates.
Behind The Voices: ElevenLabs’ “Iconic Voice Marketplace” has already lined up some pretty iconic voices.
It’s enlisted living A-listers like Matthew McConaughey — an investor who plans to use it to translate the audio version of his newsletter into Spanish — and Michael Caine, who signed up to have his voice used for reading books and emails.
And it’s also lined up several not-living icons through deals with their estates — including John Wayne, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Mark Twain.
The voices were created using either AI voice-cloning tech or by synthetically recreating them from archival media and recordings (since Mark Twain can’t exactly step into the audio booth).
Last Syllable: The marketplace lets celebrities and their estates offer paid services or allows brands and organizations to inquire about licensing a particular AI voice — with ElevenLabs facilitating the connection. If both parties agree to collaborate, the deal is negotiated and finalized directly through the platform.
The result? Celebrities get paid without ever having to get out of bed — or, more morbidly, the grave — and open their mouths.
Prediction: We’re about to see a wave of celebrity-voiced commercials from brands that could have never afforded to get those same A-listers on screen.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.