German media giant Bertelsmann has signed a deal with AI company ElevenLabs to use its platforms and tools to drive innovation and improve production processes across a range of Bertelsmann companies.
The aim is for the companies to work together to find ways in which London-based ElevenLabs tools can help Bertelsmann create new products and accelerate and streamline production, marketing and distribution of existing properties.
Bertelsmann is one of Europe’s largest media conglomerates, home to RTL Group (which includes the top TV channels in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Hungary and Luxembourg and production giant Fremantle), the world’s largest book publisher, Penguin Random House, music giant BMG, plus marketing, education and investment arms.
The partners plan to use ElevenLabs tools to deliver “lifelike voice and sound generation,” and audio tools to “support production and pre-production” for Bertelsmann units, per ElevenLabs. The pitch is that the AI tools will help various Bertelsmann units find ways to expand their reach and productivity. The hope is that the potential for accelerated production will spark creativity and ultimately create compelling new products.
“With Bertelsmann’s Tech & Data Alliance and the recently established AI Hub, we are leading the way in adopting new technologies in our businesses and building partnerships to accelerate the adoption of GenAI solutions in our businesses. ElevenLabs’ advanced AI solutions are industry-leading and deliver high-quality and multilingual audio experiences,” said Rhys Nölke, Chief Data Officer at Bertelsmann.
ElevenLabs has focused on audio production and building high-quality AI models from licensed source material. ElevenLabs has made a point of announcing its licensing deals with notable media and entertainment figures such as the estates of Judy Garland, Burt Reynolds, James Dean, and Jerry Garcia. In September, ElevenLabs signed a licensing agreement with renowned health and wellness expert Deepak Chopra. The deal will make Chopra’s distinctive voice available as an audiobook reader to users of ElevenLabs data. The two have also collaborated on the “Digital Deepak” AI chatbot that was trained on Chopak’s more than 90 books and countless public appearances, allowing users to ask the chatbot questions and get answers with Chopra’s synthetic voice.
“Together with Bertelsmann, we want to further expand the possibilities of storytelling,” says Mati Staniszewski, CEO of ElevenLabs. “Whether it’s creating richer audio, accelerating production or making content accessible in multiple languages, our work together is about finding new ways to bring creators and their audiences closer together.”
The partners noted that 36 units of the huge Bertelsmann group are already using ElevenLabs AI tools in some form.
“The partnership reflects a shared goal: to use AI to help creators do what they do best, not replace them,” ElevenLabs said.