This app lets you listen to any book, article or PDF file using AI

Text-to-speech is one of the best accessibility features on smartphones. It’s also useful if you just want to listen to content instead of reading it (like while driving or running). Luckily, there’s a new reading app that promises to be a significant upgrade.

ElevenLabs has announced the availability of the ElevenLabs Reader app for Android and iOS, promising that it will let you listen to anything on the go. More specifically, the developer claims that you can listen to PDFs, ePubs, text files, articles, newsletters, or other text-based content. It’s worth noting, however, that the app doesn’t support your Kindle library.

The Reader app offers a variety of AI voices in 32 languages. Oddly enough, some of the AI ​​voices include deceased celebrities such as Sir Laurence Olivier, James Dean, and Judy Garland, thanks to agreements with their heirs.

ElevenLabs claims that the Reader app is free and that listening to content does not use up credits from your monthly internet plan. It is unclear whether converting content from text to speech actually uses any kind of credits. The app’s user interface does not convey this when transferring files.

“We plan to eventually introduce a premium version of the app, but even then we will offer a generous free plan,” the company added.

In any case, I managed to import a few old ePub novels without a hitch, although a few files failed to transfer for some reason. As for the voice quality, I’m still not a fan of the AI-generated voices, but they seem like a welcome improvement over the robotic text-to-speech engines of old on smartphones and computers. It’s also worth noting that you can’t save or share the audio, as the options are grayed out in the app. But fingers crossed we’ll see those features soon.