oxygen/Getty Images
AI assistants are cropping up faster than we can keep track of them, promising to automate our mundane daily tasks and skyrocket productivity. AI audio company ElevenLabs wants to take those promises a step further: from words to actions.
Also: How AI can save us from our ‘infinite’ workdays, according to Microsoft
On Monday, the company launched 11ai, a voice assistant powered by the company’s library of more than 5,000 voices. What sets this assistant apart, ElevenLabs claims, is its integration with Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is quickly becoming an industry standard for seamlessly connecting AI systems, especially agents, with proprietary data. MCP has even been adopted by Anthropic competitors, including Meta, Google, and OpenAI.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
“Traditional voice assistants face limitations when it comes to actually accomplishing something meaningful,” the company said in the announcement. “They can answer questions but can’t research new findings based on supplied data. 11ai is our foray into addressing this by connecting directly to the tools you use every day through MCP integration.”
The integration means 11ai can connect to your Slack, Google Calendar, Perplexity, and more to automate commands with your voice. In the release, ElevenLabs noted that 11ai can help users plan their morning agenda, conduct customer research, manage projects, and more. If none of the company’s voice options suit you, you can opt to clone your own voice instead.
Also: How to turn AI into your own research assistant with this free Google tool
“The MCP architecture ensures that all connections are secure and that 11ai only has access to the specific actions you’ve authorized,” the release states. “Each integration can be configured with appropriate permissions, giving you full control over what your AI assistant can and cannot do.”
ElevenLabs is known for its impressive AI voice cloning and offers other products, including text-to-speech and sound effect generation. More broadly, voice is becoming a key mode for AI systems due to its accessibility — Google is even incorporating it into basic Search.
How to try 11ai
11ai is available now as a proof of concept in alpha, and ElevenLabs is looking for user feedback during the product’s “experimental phase,” as it noted in the release. You can try it for yourself by signing up for free at 11.ai, choosing your preferred language and voice (or cloning your own), adding your integrations and any custom MCP servers you’d like, and then starting a conversation.
Also: AI agents will threaten humans to achieve their goals, Anthropic report finds
The assistant’s default name is Eleven unless you opt to change it. You can also adjust for the voice’s speed and avatar appearance, and write in customized behaviors in natural language.
Screenshot by Radhika Rajkumar/ZDNET
“As we gather feedback and iterate on the platform, we’ll be adding new integrations, improving the conversation flow, and expanding the actions 11ai can take on your behalf,” ElevenLabs noted.
Privacy
ElevenLabs’ privacy policy states that it “may process your personal data to research, develop, train, and otherwise improve our AI models.” Because 11ai is free, it’s safe to assume users forfeit their conversations with the assistant as training data as well.
Also: I told ChatGPT more about myself – here’s how the AI used that personal info
“Our training practices disassociate (or fully remove) data included in the training dataset that could identify you with your audio, video, or related content,” the policy notes. If you choose to clone your voice, ElevenLabs offers degrees of usage you can choose from, which may also depend on where you live, and will delete your voice data three years after your last interaction with the platform.
ElevenLabs’ new mobile app
On Tuesday, ElevenLabs also released a mobile app for its voice generation platform. Geared toward creators, professionals, and educators, the app lets users generate voiceovers and other AI-powered audio in 70 languages directly from their phones “in seconds,” the company said in an X thread. If you’re new to ElevenLabs, you get 10,000 free characters per month.
You can download the app for iOS and Android.
Want more stories about AI? Sign up for Innovation, our weekly newsletter.
