Generative AI company ElevenLabs has recently welcomed the talented team behind Omnivore, an innovative open-source app designed for avid readers who prefer to save their reading for later. This exciting development was shared by Omnivore’s co-founders, Jackson Harper and Hongbu Wu, who expressed their enthusiasm about the transition in a blog post. They highlighted the opportunity this move presents in creating more engaging and accessible experiences for serious readers worldwide.
ElevenLabs prides itself on its commitment to the developer community, and the Omnivore codebase will remain entirely open-source. This approach ensures that developers everywhere can continue to enhance and evolve Omnivore’s technology. However, users should note that they have until November 16 to export their data, after which it will be deleted.
Omnivore, launched in 2021 by Harper and Wu, has been a robust platform catering to text enthusiasts. The app supports various features, such as highlighting, PDF and offline reading, and is accessible via web, iOS, Android, and major web browsers. A standout feature within Omnivore is its text-to-speech capability, enhanced by ElevenLabs’ voice generation API, offering users a seamless listening experience.
The collaboration between Omnivore and ElevenLabs began with the integration of ultra-realistic AI voices from ElevenLabs into Omnivore. This feature quickly became a favorite among users, allowing them to listen to articles and books with lifelike voice narration.
As Harper and Wu join ElevenLabs, they will focus their efforts on advancing ElevenReader, ElevenLabs’ proprietary reader app. Already, valuable updates have been introduced to ElevenReader, which allows users to upload articles, PDFs, and e-books and enjoy them in various languages and voices, including iconic voices like Judy Garland and James Dean.
It’s expected that some of Omnivore’s impressive features will gradually be incorporated into ElevenReader, providing users with a rich, comprehensive reading and listening experience. Harper and Wu are dedicated to driving forward the future of accessible reading and listening through ElevenReader, ensuring a bright future for readers everywhere.
ElevenLabs, having achieved unicorn status earlier this year by securing substantial investment, primarily generates its revenue through AI tools that assist in creating synthetic voices for audiobooks and video dubbing across multiple languages. The company is poised for further growth, with potential future investments valuing it at approximately $3 billion.
