The India-based audio entertainment startup Pocket FM recently announced its partnership with New York-based voice-cloning startup ElevenLabs.
The goal of this partnership, according to Pocket FM, is to leverage advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technology to amplify the production of its flagship audio series. Pocket FM — which raised $103 million in Series D led by Lightspeed Venture Partners this past March — will now be using Elevenlabs’ AI text-to-audio technology to turn its text-based scripts into full-blown shows at an unprecedented mass scale.
Before partnering with ElevenLabs, Pocket FM extensively tested ElevenLabs’s text-to-audio AI tools to help create over 30,000 hours of audio entertainment shows for its platform. According to a recent article from TechCrunch highlighting the partnership, “In its latest rollout, Pocket FM expects to significantly expand its content library, surpassing 100,000 hours of audio by the end of the year. Notably, the startup’s AI-powered tools have already demonstrated remarkable efficiency, reducing audio production costs by 90% during the experimental phase.”
“It’s an exciting journey ahead, one that we believe will set new standards in the entertainment industry,” Mati Staniszweski, CEO and co-founder of ElevenLabs, said regarding the partnership. ElevenLabs claims its AI tools deliver lifelike experiences of audio with nuanced speech, voices, and sound effects available in nearly 30 different languages.
However, cost reduction is not the only reason for the fast-growing audio entertainment startup’s partnership. With the help of ElevenLabs’s innovative text-to-audio technology, Pocket FM aims to empower its writers to effortlessly convert their narratives into compelling audio series with remarkable and unprecedented ease.
Pocket FM currently leads the audio entertainment space in the US and India. As explained by the startup’s co-founder and CTO, Prateek Dixit, their team believes that their new alliance with ElevenLabs will help its writers produce roughly 30 minutes of high-quality audio each day, boosting their productivity by more than 10 times.
“By integrating ElevenLabs’s AI capabilities into our platform, we have empowered not only our own writers but also the broader writing community. In making the creative process of generating audio series faster and simpler than ever, we can help make blockbuster-worthy audio storytelling accessible for everyone,” said Dixit.
However, this deeper integration of AI into Pocket FM’s creative process leaves many wondering whether or not it will threaten the jobs of human narrators or voice-over artists. According to Dixit, human narration will continue to play the same “crucial role” for Pocket FM that it did in helping the startup redefine the audio entertainment space with its flagship episodic audio series.
As Dixit explains, “AI narration will complement our existing offerings by expanding our content library and accelerating Pocket FM’s go-to-market strategy. The use of AI tools will help our writers and, in turn, our company to mass-produce multiple narratives of a story differently in multiple languages with specific accents, dialects, and nuances that may be required for each new language in our catalog. This will also help us stay equipped with the necessary innovation for our planned global expansion.”
Over the next couple of years, Pocket FM aims to solidify its standing in several additional key markets, including Europe and Latin America. “We are committed to pushing the boundaries of audio entertainment, enriching the experience for audiences worldwide,” Dixit added.