Voice AI startup ElevenLabs is offering an early look at a new model that turns a prompt into song lyrics. To raise awareness, it’s following a similar playbook Sam Altman used when OpenAI introduced Sora, its video-generating AI, soliciting ideas on social media and turning them into lyrics.
Founded by former Google and Palantir employees, ElevenLabs specializes in using machine learning for voice cloning and synthesis in different languages. It offers many tools, including one capable of dubbing full-length movies. Unsurprisingly, the company has set its sights on the music industry.
Imagine the possibilities of using this model: Generate a fun lullaby to play for your kids to put them to sleep, produce a clever jingle for a marketing campaign, develop a snappy music intro for your podcast, and more. Could there be a chance that someone might use ElevenLabs’ AI to develop the next hit song? Many AI music startups are already popping up, such as Harmonai, Lyrical Labs, Suno AI, Loudly, and more.
It’s also feasible that users could sell these AI-generated songs on the ElevenLabs marketplace, which it launched in January. The company’s Voice Library currently allows users to sell their AI-cloned voice for money while maintaining control over its availability and how they’re compensated.
But AI music generation isn’t welcomed by all. As with all generative AI applications, the question is what ElevenLabs trained this model on and if it included copyrighted materials—and if so, whether it obtained permission from the rights holder or believes training without permission is protected by fair use. Some oppose the development of such technology because artists may find themselves out of a job. The concern is that the AI will be easily able to replicate the style of a particular artist and then you no longer need them to put out new music. They don’t want to do that Christmas album? No problem. Just use AI for that. And let’s also not forget about the possibility of this being used to produce deepfakes.
VentureBeat has contacted ElevenLabs for additional comment on its music model and will update this post if we hear back. We don’t know the maximum song length it can produce, but based on the example the company’s Head of Design Ammaar Reshi posted on X, it’s likely the AI will generate lyrics for a three-minute piece.
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