ElevenLabs has added a Deepak Chopra to the line of celebrity voice clones available on the Reader app. Chopra’s AI-generated voice can now read any digital text to you with his full approval. Chopra joins the likes of Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier as a celebrity voice, although he is the first living person to have signed up to have his synthetic avatar read digital texts.
Chopra has been a leader in promoting meditation and mindfulness for decades and is also taking the lead in deploying a voice clone of himself. A few months ago, ElevenLabs and Chopra produced a virtual Chopra chatbot called Digital Deepak. Trained on Chopra’s collected speeches, books, interviews and other commentaries, Digital Deepak serves as a limited but still informed source for Chopra’s thinking. You can ask Digital Deepak questions about himself and his work and get personalized answers from his AI voice clone.
The success of Digital Deepak has led Chopra and ElevenLabs to expand their partnership to the Reader App. The Reader app uses voice clones like Chopra’s to output uploaded text. It reads the words and mimics human emotions based on the context.
Those interested in hearing the voices can try the ElevenLabs Reader app for free for three months or subscribe to the ElevenLabs platform to access the iOS or Android app. ElevenLabs has suggested that using celebrity voices will enhance any listening experience. Chopra’s inclusion among Hollywood’s Golden Age stars suggests it won’t just be for entertainment, but also for deeper topics.
Chopra speaks
“I am proud to announce my partnership with ElevenLabs. Listening can help cultivate emotional nurturing and commitment. This is no different in the age of AI, it’s just more important,” said Chopra. “I have always written to connect with people, and now I can connect on a deeper level with a global audience as I make my teachings available to everyone in my own voice.”
Artists have expressed concerns that AI will leave them out of work because it can mimic their look and sound much more cheaply. Meta has already proven that having celebrities voice the Meta AI assistant will make a lot of money, and Disney made sure it had a deal with James Earl Jones before he passed away to legally recreate his voice if they made Darth Want father in future projects. Recent strikes by actors’ unions have made stronger protections against unfair AI replication of their performance part of their agreements. For now, ElevenLabs wants people to see Chopra and other famous voices as a way to create deeper connections with people they respect, even if it’s all synthetic.
“At ElevenLabs, we strive to preserve and celebrate cultural legacies while pushing the boundaries of technology,” said Dustin Blank, Head of Partnerships at ElevenLabs. “By bringing voices like Deepak Chopra to our platform, we’re not just improving our app – we’re creating new ways for people to connect with the most influential figures and their work.”