ElevenLabs CEO predicts AI audio models will commoditize in 2 years

ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski predicts that AI audio models will become “commoditized” within the next couple of years, despite his company’s current focus on building advanced audio AI technology. Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Staniszewski outlined how the competitive advantages of proprietary models will diminish over time, forcing companies to shift toward integrated applications and partnerships to maintain their edge.

The big picture: While AI audio models currently provide significant competitive advantages, Staniszewski believes these differences will shrink as more players enter the market and solve similar technical challenges.

Why this matters now: ElevenLabs, an AI voice technology company, continues investing heavily in model development because superior audio quality remains a critical differentiator for AI voice applications, even if that advantage won’t last forever.
• “The only way to solve it is… building the models yourself, and then, over the long term, there will be other players that will solve that, too,” Staniszewski explained.
• Companies seeking reliable, scalable solutions will likely still use different specialized models for different use cases.

What’s coming next: The industry is moving toward multi-modal approaches that combine audio with other AI capabilities within the next year or two.
• “So, you will create audio and video at the same time, or audio and LLMs at the same time in a conversational setting,” Staniszewski said, citing Google’s Veo 3 as an example.
• ElevenLabs plans to launch partnerships with other companies and work with open source technologies to combine its audio expertise with other AI models.

The strategic shift: ElevenLabs is positioning itself to focus on both model building and applications to create long-term value as the market evolves.
• “The same way software and hardware was the magic for Apple, we think the product and AI will be the magic for the generation of the best use cases,” Staniszewski added.

What they’re saying: Staniszewski acknowledged that while model commoditization is inevitable, current technical challenges still require proprietary solutions.
• “Over the long term, it will commoditize — over the next couple of years,” he said. “Even if there’s differences — which I think will be the truth for some voices, some languages — on its own, the differences will be smaller.”