Time's almost up! There's only one week left to request an invite to The AI Impact Tour on June 5th. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to explore various methods for auditing AI models. Find out how you can attend here. After launching tools for text-to-speech and speech-to-speech synthesis, AI voice startup ElevenLabs is moving to the next target. The two-year-old startup founded by former Google and Palantir employees today announced the launch of a new text-to-sound AI offering called Sound Effects.Available starting today on the ElevenLabs website, Sound Effects uses the startup’s in-house foundation model and allows creators to generate different types of audio samples by simply typing a description of their imagined sound. The company first teased the tool in February with a post featuring Sora-generated clips, albeit enhanced with AI sound effects.ElevenLabs partnered with Shutterstock to bring this product to life and expects to see adoption from creators across domains who are looking to enhance their content with immersive soundscapes

Ophir Ronen, founder and CEO of CalmWave, accepts the award for UX Design of the Year at the 2023 GeekWire Awards. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota)The finalists for UX Design of the Year at the 2024 GeekWire Awards are helping end users across home building, investing, AI-generated speech, data analysis, and schedule and expense tracking for gig workers. The award is intended to recognize a product that has a user experience that is meaningful, usable and delightful for those end-users. The five finalists are Digs, Copper, Row Zero, WellSaid Labs, and Solo.Keep scrolling for descriptions of each finalist, provided through the nomination process. And submit your vote here or below for UX Design of the Year, presented by Blink UX.Digs End user: Residential home builders, vendors, and homeowners.Describe how the UX benefits an end user: The UX of Digs takes the complicated process of collaboration on a home build and makes it intuitive and simple to use with familiar UX similar to many favorite social media and collaboration platforms. Add in automatic organization and AI-powered search and the user has a powerful yet easy-to-use experience that enhances the build process for everyone involved.CopperEnd user: Kids, teens, and parents.Describe how the UX benefits an end user: Starting from obtaining SEC approval for teens to be able to build an investment portfolio that is focused on driving financial knowledge through investing real money in the stock market, the team has distilled a tremendous amount of complexity into a user experience that has driven over 2.6 million members to start their journey in wealth building

After mastering the art of machine learning (ML) based voice cloning and synthesis, ElevenLabs, the two-year-old AI startup founded by former Google and Palantir employees, is moving to expand its portfolio with a new text-to-sound model.Teased a few hours ago, the AI will allow creators to generate sound effects by simply describing their imagination in words. It is expected to enrich content in a new way in the age of AI-driven digital experiences. The model is not available publicly, but ElevenLabs has showcased its capabilities by releasing a minute-long teaser featuring videos produced by OpenAI’s new Sora and enhanced with its own AI sounds. The company has also set up a signup page and is calling potential users to join an early access waitlist for the model.Going beyond voice with AI sound effectsFounded in 2022, ElevenLabs has been researching AI to make audio and video content – from movies to podcasts – accessible across languages and geographies. The company has debuted a range of offerings to further this, including text-to-speech and speech-to-speech models that can produce AI speech from a given piece of content (text/audio/video) in 29 different languages whilst delivering natural voice and emotions (original speaker’s voice in speech-to-speech)