NY firm ElevenLabs partners with Karnataka govt. to boost Voice AI adoption
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Minister Priyank Kharge handing an MOU to Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, during the ElevenLabs Summit in Bengaluru on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
ElevenLabs, a New York-based firm specialising in generative voice AI, speech synthesis, voice cloning, and conversational AI agents, has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS), a nodal implementation agency for the Department of Electronics, Information Technology, Biotechnology, and Science and Technology, to advance its adoption of voice AI.
The MoU was signed between Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs and Priyank Kharge, Minister for Information Technology and Biotechnology, here on Tuesday. The partnership is expected to boost the adoption of voice AI in Kannada across skilling, citizen services, and grievance redressal, alongside work on responsible AI and voice restoration.
“India has been at the frontier of voice experiences and part of our story at ElevenLabs from the start,” Mr. Staniszewski said while speaking at a summit.
The summit also marked the company’s shift beyond voice generation towards conversational AI that can listen, understand and complete real-world workflows. India is ElevenLabs’ second-largest market, outside of the U.S., and businesses in the country recorded 100 million conversations on ‘ElevenAgents’ over the past year, with more than 70% of them in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.
Over 25,000 Indian developers and businesses are actively building with its API each month, up roughly 2.5x over the past year, ElevanLabs claimed.
ElevenLabs, the company said, has committed to restoring 1 million voices to those who have permanently lost their voice due to conditions including ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), cerebral palsy, throat cancer, and multiple sclerosis. On this front, the firm is working with partners including the ALS Care and Support Foundation, Organisation for Rare Diseases India, ‘Yes, We Can’, Nipman Foundation and The Quantum Hub. ElevenLabs’ wider impact programme has provided free technology to over 75 NGOs in India, according to the company.
At the summit, former radio and entertainment professional Sapna Rana, who lost her ability to speak after developing ALS, shared how recreating her voice has allowed her to communicate and create again.
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