What ElevenLabs Is
ElevenLabs is an AI voice synthesis company that produces text-to-speech technology at a quality level that was not commercially available before 2022. Its models are trained on hundreds of thousands of hours of human speech at a resolution that captures not just the phonetic content of words but the prosodic elements — the rhythm, the emphasis, the natural variation in pace and pitch — that distinguish human speech from the robotic cadence of earlier text-to-speech systems.
At conversational listening distances — the range at which a phone speaker is heard in a car window or at a table — ElevenLabs-generated voices are not distinguishable from human recordings by most listeners. The chef describing the special sounds like the chef. The agent pitching the listing sounds like the agent.
How ElevenLabs Powers Talking QR Codes
When a business writes a script in the TalkingQRCodes.com Campaign Manager and clicks Generate Talking QR, the platform sends the script text to the ElevenLabs API along with the selected voice parameters. ElevenLabs returns an MP3 audio file of the script spoken in the selected voice. The platform stores the MP3 on the player page hosting infrastructure. When the QR code is scanned, the player page loads and the browser plays the MP3.
The generation process happens in seconds. From script to playable audio: under 30 seconds. From script to deployed talking QR code: under five minutes including download and placement.
The 25 Available Voices
Custom Voice Option
Business plan subscribers can bring their own ElevenLabs API key and use a custom cloned voice — the business owner's own voice, a trained spokesperson voice, or any voice cloned from a recording. The custom voice option means the business card talking QR code can speak in the owner's actual voice — the most personal and trust-building option for professional services applications.