ElevenLabs, a software company, has recently expanded its ElevenReader app by introducing GenFM, a feature that converts documents into personalized AI-generated podcasts. This new feature, powered by AI-driven co-hosts, allows for quick audio generation in 32 languages, catering to various use cases such as commuting, studying, language learning, and multitasking. It also includes adaptive summaries and AI-generated narration to make the content more engaging.
Initially available on iOS, GenFM builds on the success of ElevenReader app, which was launched earlier this year. The company is now expanding its global presence, with a team of over 100 members from 29 countries, including the expansion of its hubs in London and New York. It is also making strategic investments in India, with the appointment of local leadership and building a dedicated team to improve its service to Indian customers, users, and partners. This expansion will focus on localizing technology, enhancing support for Indic languages, and growing the Voice Library.
Similarly, PlayAI has launched PlayDialog beta, its most advanced AI speech model, which uses full conversational context to create more natural and expressive speech. It is ideal for voice dubbing, synthetic podcasts, and customer interactions. Along with this, PlayAI has also introduced PlayNote, a tool that generates podcasts, narrations, and stories from various media types like PDFs, text, and videos. Powered by PlayDialog’s realistic speech, PlayNote is available via API for large-scale content creation. Play AI also offers API access for custom app development, with 16 voice options to choose from, along with a starter app to help users get started quickly and easily.
In addition to this, Meta has released an open-source equivalent of NotebookLM, called NotebookLlama, built on Meta’s Llama models. Like NotebookLM, it generates conversational, podcast-style summaries from uploaded text files.
NotebookLM, built on Google’s Gemini 1.5 model, is known for its AI content generation and realistic voice models. Last week, Google launched new features to improve research and learning. Using Gemini 1.5, users can upload PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs, and Google Slides for summarization and topic connections. The tool provides personalized insights with clear citations for direct quotes. The new Audio Overview feature also turns sources into ‘Deep Dive’ discussions for learning on the move.
