ElevenLabs, the AI voice startup that has become almost synonymous with synthetic speech, just doubled its valuation to a jaw-dropping $6.6 billion.
The news broke when insiders revealed staff will be allowed to sell up to $100 million in shares through a tender offer, according to Reuters. For context, that puts the company in the same conversation as established unicorns that have been around much longer.
If you’ve been paying attention, the company’s momentum isn’t coming out of nowhere. ElevenLabs reportedly grew its annual recurring revenue from $100 million to $200 million in just 10 months.
Now it’s setting its sights on $300 million before year’s end. That’s not just a growth curve—it’s a rocket trajectory. And here’s my two cents: the hunger for generative AI voices is no passing fad; it’s clearly shaping up to be a billion-dollar pillar of the broader AI industry.
But here’s the flip side. Growth like this doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s happening against a backdrop of very real ethical debates.
Bollywood singer Shaan, for example, slammed the cloning of legendary singer Kishore Kumar’s voice as “cruel,” saying it disrespected the emotional legacy of the artist. His comments, reported in the Economic Times, struck a chord with artists and audiences alike.
And honestly, I get it—there’s something deeply unsettling about hearing a voice from the past repurposed for today’s entertainment market.
Not all applications are controversial, though. In India, researchers at IIIT-Hyderabad have been developing AI-powered tools to give voice to tribal languages like Santali and Mundari, part of the Adi Vaani initiative.
It’s an example of tech being used for preservation rather than exploitation, as reported by the Times of India. That’s the kind of use case that makes me root for this industry—it’s not just about flashy demos or Wall Street hype, but about making a tangible cultural impact.
Still, even with positive stories, the race for dominance is heating up. Competitors like OpenAI and Google are pushing aggressively into speech synthesis, and the space has become a magnet for venture capital.
The tech’s potential extends from audiobooks and virtual assistants to gaming and healthcare. A broader analysis in TechCrunch points out that the market for voice AI could soon rival text generation in scale.
The bigger question—at least the one I can’t shake—is whether regulators and industry leaders can keep pace with the technology’s breakneck growth. Voice cloning can empower, preserve, or deceive, depending on who’s wielding it.
And that gray zone is where the real story lies. ElevenLabs may be sitting on a multi-billion-dollar valuation, but the verdict on how responsibly the industry handles these voices? That’s still very much up for grabs.