ElevenLabs, a rapidly growing startup specializing in AI-powered synthetic voice tools, has announced the global availability of its Reader app, which now supports 32 languages. Initially launched in June in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, the Reader app allows users to upload various text content—such as articles, PDFs, and e-books—and listen to it in a variety of languages and voices.
The expanded language support includes Portuguese, Spanish, French, Hindi, German, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Italian, Tamil, and Swedish, among others. This global rollout is powered by ElevenLabs’ Turbo v2.5 model, which was released last month and is designed to reduce latency in text-to-speech conversion while enhancing voice quality.
ElevenLabs, which achieved unicorn status earlier this year following an $80 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, offers an API that businesses can leverage for applications like dubbing and text-to-speech. The company’s technology is already integrated into various platforms, including Rabbit r1 for voice interactions, Perplexity AI-powered search engine, and audio platforms such as Pocket FM and Kuku FM.
The Reader app, ElevenLabs’ first consumer-facing product, has been enriched with hundreds of new voices tailored for different languages. Recently, ElevenLabs also licensed the voices of iconic actors like Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Sir Laurence Olivier, further diversifying its voice library.
As competition in the text-to-speech space intensifies, ElevenLabs’ Reader app is positioned against rivals like Speechify, which offers features such as document scanning, Gmail and Canvas integrations, and voice cloning. Other competitors include Mozilla-owned Pocket and The New York Times’ Audm-based audio app.
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Looking ahead, ElevenLabs plans to introduce additional features to the Reader app, including offline support and the ability to share audio snippets, as it continues to innovate and expand its offerings in the synthetic voice space.
