Today's generative AI can create text, images, videos, music, and more. But one skill that's becoming increasingly popular is the ability to create a podcast. Google's NotebookLM is one tool that can generate a podcast that sounds like two people chatting. Now an app called ElevenReader can do the same.
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Developed by AI audio research firm ElevenLabs, the app taps into a feature called GenFM. Using the ElevenLabs Reader app for iOS (the Android app can't create podcasts just yet, but that skill is in the works), you choose your source content. Here, you can copy a link to a webpage, write or paste written text, import a PDF or other document type, or scan printed or on-screen text. You then tell the app to create a new podcast episode.
In response, the ElevenLabs app chooses the right host and co-host among its AI voices, sprinkles in some conversational touches that real people would use, and finally creates the podcast. You can then listen to it via the built-in audio player and share it with others.
The app supports 32 different languages, so you can create and listen to podcasts in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, and more.
ElevenLabs offers other AI features with its website and mobile apps, including AI agents, text-to-speech, voice cloning, dubbing, and a text-to-sound effect generator. Most of these options will take a bite out of the 10,000 credits that ElevenLabs gives you each month. If the limit continually runs out, you can sign up for one of the paid subscription plans.
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So, how does ElevenLabs differ from Google's NotebookLM for podcast creation?
The ElevenLabs app can handle 32 languages, while Google's tool only supports English for now. NotebookLM is limited to two AI-generated voices, while ElevenLabs offers dozens of voices, automatically choosing the two best suited for your podcast. The ability to create podcasts with ElevenLabs is limited to the iOS app with Android support coming soon, while NotebookLM is a web-based tool. Both are free to use and accept many content types as the source.
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Overall, both tools can create a podcast that accurately reflects the content. However, the conversations offered by NotebookLM sound more natural and more like real people than the ones from ElevenLabs. Still, both tools are worth trying.
Now, here's how the podcast generator works with ElevenLabs.
Podcast results
In my testing, ElevenLabs created interesting and accurate podcasts based on the source material. But how does it fare against the podcast creation offered by Google's NotebookLM? Though both tools are worth using, NotebookLM gets the nod for two reasons.
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First, Google's tool takes much less time to create the podcast than the ElevenLabs app. Second, and more importantly, the AI-generated voices used by NotebookLM sound much more natural and friendly than the ones from ElevenLabs. Still, either tool can provide an in-depth understanding of the topic of your choice in an entertaining and informative format.