The AI arms race continues to accelerate, with new frontiers in voice cloning emerging almost daily. The latest development comes from San Francisco-based startup ElevenLabs, which just announced that their new AI model can now mimic voices speaking fluently in 30 different languages—a dramatic expansion from the original eight that were previously supported.

According to ElevenLabs, the new Multilingual v2 model delivers “emotionally rich” audio that captures the nuanced inflections of natural speech. Users type the text they want spoken in the target language, and the AI generates a seamless voiceover. The company provides two main voice cloning options: a text-to-speech tool and a “VoiceLab” for cloning specific voices.

With, “Voicelab,” upload speech samples to create a custom voice clone, which the AI analyzes to build a synthetic version. This cloned voice can then be manipulated to say anything imaginable. ElevenLabs claims the latest update means these AI doppelgangers can now speak fluently in tongues like Swedish, Arabic, and Malay.

The expanded linguistic capabilities also coincide with ElevenLabs moving its voice cloning tech out of beta testing. The company aims to market the tool for practical applications like narrating audiobooks, as in the case of Lukeman Literary.

The company's co-founder, ExPalantir CEO Mati Staniszewski said in a statement: "We eventually hope to cover even more languages ​​and voices with the help of AI and eliminate language barriers to content."

According to decrypt.co