This article summarizes a conversation between Mati Staniszewski, co-founder and CEO of 11 Labs, and the hosts of the No Priors podcast regarding the evolution of voice technology, the company’s rapid growth, and the future of human-computer interaction.
11 Labs: Growth and Scale
Founded in 2022, 11 Labs has achieved significant scale in just three years, reaching a $300 million run rate. The company operates as a "remote-first" organization with 350 employees distributed across global hubs, including London, New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Brazil.
The company’s revenue is split roughly 50/50 between its self-serve creative platform—which boasts over 5 million monthly active users—and its enterprise-grade agent platform. Currently, 11 Labs serves thousands of enterprise clients, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to high-growth AI startups.
Foundational Vision: The Future of Voice
The inspiration for 11 Labs stemmed from the founders' upbringing in Poland, where foreign films were historically dubbed by a single, flat-toned narrator regardless of the character's gender or emotion. Recognizing this as a broken experience, the founders sought to use technology to enable high-quality, emotionally resonant, and multilingual content delivery.
11 Labs defines its mission as solving the way humans interact with technology. The company builds foundational audio models that allow for human-like speech synthesis, advanced speech understanding, and complex orchestration. Their vision extends beyond static content creation to interactive, real-time voice interfaces that could eventually replace traditional keyboard-and-screen interactions.
Research and Product Sequencing
11 Labs structures its development by creating "labs" around specific problems, combining research, engineering, and operations. This approach allows them to sequence development effectively:
- The Voice Lab: Focused on high-quality narration and dubbing.
- The Agent Lab: Focused on combining Large Language Models (LLMs), speech-to-text, and text-to-speech to create functional, low-latency agents.
Mati emphasizes that while many companies struggle to balance research and product, 11 Labs treats research as a "head start" (typically a 6–12 month advantage) while focusing simultaneously on building a robust product layer. They prioritize internal research to ensure they remain ahead of competitors, noting that architectural breakthroughs—not just scale—are the primary driver of quality in the audio space.
Enterprise Applications and Agent Platforms
Beyond creative tools, 11 Labs is seeing massive traction in "agentic" customer support. Use cases are shifting from reactive, problem-solving bots to proactive assistants that guide users through e-commerce journeys or government services.
Key high-impact areas include:
- Immersive Media: Integrating voices into gaming (e.g., bringing Darth Vader into Fortnite) and interactive storytelling.
- Education: Personal tutors capable of providing on-demand instruction. 11 Labs has partnered with organizations like chess.com and Masterclass to allow users to interact with expert voices in training environments.
- Government Transformation: Working with ministries to create "agentic governments" that automate public services and information distribution for citizens.
The Future of Voice Technology
Mati believes the industry is moving toward a world where voice is the primary interface for technology. While he acknowledges the rise of "AI companions," he is more personally excited about "super-assistant" models—systems that manage daily logistics, environment control, and information, acting as a "Jarvis-like" utility.
However, he highlights that the future of education and communication will likely remain a hybrid model:
- AI Tutoring: Useful for personalized, on-demand knowledge acquisition.
- Human-to-Human Interaction: Essential for social development, coaching, and emotional guidance.
As the industry matures, Mati expects open-source models to improve, potentially commoditizing base-level audio quality. In response, 11 Labs is doubling down on "controllability," orchestration, and the integration of emotional context to maintain its edge in the ecosystem.