German media company Bertelsmann has partnered with AI startup ElevenLabs on an effort to drive tech innovation and workflow across Bertelsmann production, marketing and distribution. Bertelsmann operations span roughly 50 countries with businesses including the publisher Penguin Random House, record label BMG and the RTL Group television unit. The objective is for ElevenLabs tools in voice and audio generation to help Bertelsmann expand productivity and reach. In August, New York-based ElevenLabs opened a European headquarters in London, expanding its international footprint for text-to-speech and other audio apps.

“Through its AI Hub and Tech & Data Alliance, Bertelsmann has been looking for ways to use the latest AI technology in their operations,” ElevenLabs notes in a blog post. “For us, it’s a chance to help creators and media teams work more efficiently and connect with wider audiences, while also gaining valuable feedback about using our tools at scale.”

The ElevenLabs arsenal includes a voice generator that produces “human-like speech in 32 languages,” geared toward audiobooks, voiceovers, commercials and more. The company — co-founded by former Google machine learning engineer Piotr Dabkowski and ex-Palantir strategist Mateusz Staniszewski — was launched in January 2023 and raised $80 million from investors within a year.

“ElevenLabs has focused on audio production and building high-quality AI models based on licensed source material,” writes Variety, explaining that the company has “licensing pacts with notable figures in media and entertainment such as the estates of Judy Garland, Burt Reynolds, James Dean and Jerry Garcia.”

The company opened its Wardour Street office in August as its largest employee hub. More than 300 languages are spoken in London alone, internationalism that Bertelsmann will be well-positioned to leverage with help from ElevenLabs’ tech assets.

In other ElevenLabs news, the company has released a feature called GenFM that lets users upload content to create multispeaker podcasts. TechCrunch compares the feature to Google’s NotebookLM, and says it “can be found on the company’s ElevenLabs Reader iOS app,” supporting at launch 32 languages.