• by Les Luchter , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Voice AI company ElevenLabs wants to give voices back gratis to 1 million people worldwide who have lost theirs due to illness.

The initiative is valued at $1 billion -- or $1,000 per recipient, says the company.

The ElevenLabs Impact Program, which launched in 2024, has already helped some 7,000 people reclaim their voices

One of those people is not actor Michael Caine. But the British actor with an unmistakable  Cockney accent did make a deal with ElevenLabs’ newly created Iconic Marketplace to license his voice early last month Most of the names in the iconic marketplace are represented by the CMG Worldwide agency.

ElevenLabscofounder Mati Staniszewski said at the time that the Iconic Marketplace showed how AI can “responsibly expand opportunities for studio and talent, while enhancing storytelling.”

The first 25 voices in the marketplace -- as listed by ElevenLabs a couple of week ago -- ranged from a few who were easily identifiable, such as Caine and John Wayne, to a whole bunch who we didn't even know ever had their voices recorded, or it they did, weren’t exactly in Bad Bunny’s league. We’re talking the likes of Amelia Earhart, Mark Twain and Shoeless Joe Jackson.

We asked ElevenLabs what was the point of licensing voices for usually unheard folks like them, and even the relatively more recent physicist Richard Feynman? The company turned this around into “Are you asking whether there's any demand to hear the voices of Richard Feynman & Co?” Sure, I said, and heard nothing more.

When I checked back at the Iconic Marketplace this week, though, the voices of Mark Twain and Shoeless Joe Jackson were no longer available. Further research showed that neither man’s voice exists in any recordings.

In any case, Caine has become the, shall we say, “voice” of Eleven Labs.

Caine is being used liberally by ElevenLabs, both in an intro to the Iconic Marketplace and in a teaser for “11 Voices,” a new short-form doc series profiling -- in their own restored voices -- 11 people in the U.S. and UK who actually lost their voices and had them brought back by AI.

Some of the stores include

• a stroke survivor who once again gives public lectures
• a hospital chaplain with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) who has returned to counseling patients.
• a brain-injury survivor who has regained the ability to socialize and create music.
• a cerebral palsy patient who now uses his voice to pursue acting and modeling.

“The most rewarding part of building ElevenLabs is using our technology to help restore someone’s agency and sense of identity, no matter where they live or what language they speak,” Staniszewski said in a statement.

How do you restore a voice for someone who doesn’t speak anymore? The key is past recordings of their voices, which are used to create digital versions that integrate with assistive devices.

Through the docuseries, ElevenLabs hopes to reach not only individuals with voice loss but also nonprofits in the field. More than 800 nonprofits are already involved in 49 countries.

“11 Voices” can be streamed on the ElevenLabs website and YouTube channel, as well as on Spotify.

“Don’t talk about doing the right thing, partner. Just do it,” says “John Wayne” on the Iconic Marketplace site. “And let the dust settle where it may.”