Search “Speech”

ElevenLabs partners with adELA to provide free voice restoration to ALS patients in Spain

ElevenLabs announced a partnership with the Spanish ALS association adELA to give ALS patients diagnosed in Spain free access to its voice restoration and preservation technology. This is the first project of the ElevenLabs Impact Program in Spain, and Spain is also the first country to offer this technology through a nationwide patient association. Patients whose voices have not yet changed noticeably can record new samples; those whose voices have already changed can upload old recordings to generate their own digital voice. It is estimated that there are about 4,000–4,500 ALS patients in Spain, many of whom will eventually lose the ability to speak.

View story:ElevenLabs partners with adELA to provide free voice restoration to ALS patients in Spain

Voice researcher suggests families set up a safe word

Kimberly Hyun, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati, suggests that family members agree on a safe word known only to each other; if you receive a call from an unknown number claiming a family member is in trouble, you should hang up immediately and call that person back to verify. Fortune reported on the case of Deborah Del Mastro, a mother in Martinez, California: in May she received a call from someone posing as a Mexican drug cartel, and the caller played an AI-cloned recording of her daughter crying and screaming. Following the instructions, she wired $5,400 to Mexico from multiple locations within five hours, only to discover afterward that her daughter had been at work the whole time. The report also noted that McAfee tests showed that a voice sample of just three seconds is enough to generate a clone that matches 85% of the original voice; a survey by Gallup and the Stop Scams Alliance estimated that in 2025 about 15 million American adults were scammed, with losses of about $68 billion, of which 12% involved AI or deepfakes.

Voice researcher suggests families establish a safety code word

Kimberly Hyun, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati, suggests that family members agree on a safe word known only to each other; if you receive a call from an unknown number claiming a family member is in trouble, you should hang up immediately and call that person back to verify. Fortune reported on the case of Deborah Del Mastro, a mother in Martinez, California: in May she received a call from someone posing as a Mexican drug cartel, and the caller played an AI-cloned recording of her daughter crying and screaming. Following the instructions, she wired $5,400 to Mexico from multiple locations within five hours, only to discover afterward that her daughter had been at work the whole time. The report also noted that McAfee tests showed that a voice sample of just three seconds is enough to generate a clone that matches 85% of the original voice; a survey by Gallup and the Stop Scams Alliance estimated that in 2025 about 15 million American adults were scammed, with losses of about $68 billion, of which 12% involved AI or deepfakes.

View story:Voice researcher suggests families set up a safe word

ElevenLabs and KITS sign memorandum of cooperation on Kannada speech AI

On October 19, 2026, ElevenLabs and the Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS) signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the use of Kannada speech AI for citizen services, skills training, and grievance handling in Karnataka, and to enable users who have lost their voice to communicate via synthesized speech and receive free lifetime licenses. Reports from representatives said that Indian speech AI startups opposed this: Dheemanth Reddy of Maya Research is concerned that sensitive conversations between citizens and the government will flow to foreign jurisdictions, and Raoul Nanavati of Navana.ai believes that government contracts are the most valuable endorsement for local companies. The same report also compared prices: the discounted price of the ElevenLabs v4 text-to-speech API is about 2.11 rupees per 1,000 characters, while Sarvam AI is 3 rupees per 1,000 characters. There are currently no subsequent developments of fact.

ElevenLabs and KITS sign memorandum of cooperation on Kannada speech AI

On October 19, 2026, ElevenLabs and the Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS) signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the use of Kannada speech AI for citizen services, skills training, and grievance handling in Karnataka, and to enable users who have lost their voice to communicate via synthesized speech and receive free lifetime licenses. Reports from representatives said that Indian speech AI startups opposed this: Dheemanth Reddy of Maya Research is concerned that sensitive conversations between citizens and the government will flow to foreign jurisdictions, and Raoul Nanavati of Navana.ai believes that government contracts are the most valuable endorsement for local companies. The same report also compared prices: the discounted price of the ElevenLabs v4 text-to-speech API is about 2.11 rupees per 1,000 characters, while Sarvam AI is 3 rupees per 1,000 characters. There are currently no subsequent developments of fact.

View story:ElevenLabs and KITS sign memorandum of cooperation on Kannada speech AI

Neuralink publishes early feasibility study of VOICE speech restoration project

On October 28, Neuralink published a blog post disclosing the early feasibility study of its speech restoration project VOICE. The blog post revealed that an ALS participant reached an output speed of 75 words per minute in the first week of use, with a word error rate of 5.8% on a large vocabulary of 125,000 words. The study's principal investigator, Dr. Nader Pouratian, has presented the relevant data at the 2026 NEALS annual meeting. The study plans to enroll approximately 6 participants who have lost the ability to communicate due to ALS, spinal cord injury, or stroke, with the primary endpoint being device- or procedure-related adverse events within 12 months after implantation. Neuralink has not yet published a complete peer-reviewed paper; the above figures come from a single participant, and the company has not explained the types of test tasks, the separate performance of text versus speech output, or long-term effects.

Neuralink discloses early feasibility study of VOICE speech restoration project

On October 28, Neuralink published a blog post disclosing the early feasibility study of its speech restoration project VOICE. The blog post revealed that an ALS participant reached an output speed of 75 words per minute in the first week of use, with a word error rate of 5.8% on a large vocabulary of 125,000 words. The study's principal investigator, Dr. Nader Pouratian, has presented the relevant data at the 2026 NEALS annual meeting. The study plans to enroll approximately 6 participants who have lost the ability to communicate due to ALS, spinal cord injury, or stroke, with the primary endpoint being device- or procedure-related adverse events within 12 months after implantation. Neuralink has not yet published a complete peer-reviewed paper; the above figures come from a single participant, and the company has not explained the types of test tasks, the separate performance of text versus speech output, or long-term effects.

View story:Neuralink publishes early feasibility study of VOICE speech restoration project

ElevenLabs partners with adELA to provide free voice restoration to ALS patients in Spain

ElevenLabs announced a partnership with the Spanish ALS association adELA to give ALS patients diagnosed in Spain free access to its voice restoration and preservation technology. This is the first project of the ElevenLabs Impact Program in Spain, and Spain is also the first country to offer this technology through a nationwide patient association. Patients whose voices have not yet changed noticeably can record new samples; those whose voices have already changed can upload old recordings to generate their own digital voice. It is estimated that there are about 4,000–4,500 ALS patients in Spain, many of whom will eventually lose the ability to speak.

English translation is being prepared.