Premium AI Voices: ElevenLabs Narration Now Available for Pro

AI narration is one of the most practical features in modern eLearning authoring. It removes the cost and scheduling overhead of recording voiceover, and it lets you iterate on narration as easily as editing text. But not all AI voices are created equal.

Slate has included Google Neural2 voices since launch: 14 voices across 6 languages, available to everyone on every tier. They're solid, reliable, and free. For many courses, they're exactly right.

But for training where voice quality is a differentiator, where the narration needs to sound polished and natural, course creators want the best available. Starting today, that's ElevenLabs.

Why ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs has become the industry standard for AI voice synthesis. Their models produce speech with natural intonation, emotional range, and clarity that sets them apart from other providers. They're the voice engine behind podcasts, audiobooks, film dubbing, and professional media production worldwide.

Rather than building our own voice model (which would be worse), we integrated the one that professionals already use and trust. This is a deliberate choice that reflects how we think about building Slate.

What's Included

Pro subscribers get access to 10 curated ElevenLabs voices:

• 5 female voices and 5 male voices with distinct characteristics: warm, authoritative, conversational, clear, and friendly
• American, British, and neutral accents for regional flexibility
• Multilingual support powered by ElevenLabs' eleven_multilingual_v2 model
• Voice previews so you can hear each voice before generating

ElevenLabs narration costs 100 AI credits per generation (compared to 50 for standard voices), reflecting the premium quality and underlying API costs. The voices are available everywhere narration works in Slate: block-level narration and standalone audio blocks.

An Open Platform, Not a Walled Garden

Adding ElevenLabs support is part of a broader pattern. We don't build inferior versions of things that other companies do brilliantly. We integrate the best tools directly:

• Claude for AI-powered course generation and management via MCP
• Canva for presentations and visual design
• Synthesia for AI-generated video
• ElevenLabs for premium AI voice
• Google for standard TTS, AI image generation, and document embeds
• Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay for stock photography
• YouTube, Vimeo, and Loom for video hosting
• Any LMS via SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, xAPI, and cmi5

As we wrote in our recent post on Slate as a content management system: "We're building for interoperability... Meeting people where they are, whether that's Claude, Canva, or an LMS through SCORM."

ElevenLabs is the latest example. Course creators shouldn't have to choose between their preferred tools. They should be able to use the best voice engine, the best AI assistant, and their preferred content platforms, all within the same authoring environment.

Standard Voices Aren't Going Anywhere

This isn't a gating exercise. Google Neural2 voices remain available to everyone on every tier, including Free. If your courses don't need premium narration, nothing changes. ElevenLabs is an upgrade option for Pro subscribers who want the highest quality voice synthesis available.

Try It

Open any lesson in Slate, select a text block's narration option or add an audio block, and look for the Premium section in the voice selector. Preview any voice, then generate. If you're not on Pro yet, check our pricing page for plan details.