ElevenLabs, an artificial intelligence (AI) audio research and development startup, is accelerating innovation in AI-based audio content production together with audio platform company Spoon Labs, the company announced Monday.
The partnership stems from Spoon Labs' expansion from its existing live audio-centered business into story-based audio content. Traditional voice-actor recording methods required four to seven months to produce a single piece of content, resulting in lengthy production timelines and heavy cost burdens. Maintaining consistent voice quality above a certain level was also challenging.
Spoon Labs addressed these challenges by adopting ElevenLabs' AI voice solution. After switching to ElevenLabs' AI-based production method, content production time was dramatically reduced to several hours. The solution also enables multilingual content production targeting the Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese markets simultaneously. Notably, it delivers natural human-level voices, securing a competitive edge in quality.
Spoon Labs previously tested numerous domestic and international text-to-speech (TTS) solutions under conditions close to actual production environments. Given the nature of audio content, key evaluation criteria included intonation changes according to punctuation and the ability to express context-based emotions such as joy, sadness and anger. ElevenLabs received the highest score, going beyond simply reading text to grasp context and deliver speech closer to "acting."
Spoon Labs' "Pod Novel," which launched 30 pieces of content in Korea, 26 in Japan and 19 in Taiwan in January, has drawn responses from users saying the immersion is so strong they cannot tell it is AI. Based on ElevenLabs' technical capabilities, Spoon Labs plans to release more than three new pieces of content per week in each country starting this month, aiming to secure a lineup of over 100 titles in the short term.
"It was very meaningful to fundamentally improve audio content production methods based on ElevenLabs' voice AI through collaboration with Spoon Labs, which leads the global audio platform market," said Hong Sang-won, head of ElevenLabs Korea. "Going forward, we will innovate work processes through collaboration with various media companies and contribute to setting a new production standard."
