Spotify launches an ElevenLabs-powered audiobook creation tool

Source: TechCrunch

New ElevenLabs‑powered audiobook creation tool

Spotify announced a new AI tool, powered by ElevenLabs, that lets authors self‑publish audiobooks directly within the Spotify for Authors platform. The feature will launch in beta this June on an invite‑only basis and will initially support only English.

The AI‑generated audiobooks do not bind authors to an exclusive contract, allowing them to distribute their works on any platform.

Partnership background

• The tool builds on Spotify’s previous partnership with ElevenLabs, which let writers submit audiobooks created on ElevenLabs’ voice AI platform to Spotify.
• Spotify also partnered with Google Play Books to enable digitally narrated content, but may have sought more expressive voice models like those offered by ElevenLabs.
• ElevenLabs launched its own self‑publishing platform for authors in 2025 (source).

Expansion of “Spotify for Authors”

Spotify is adding support for ten additional languages:

• French
• Canadian French
• German
• Dutch
• Latin American Spanish
• Swedish
• Finnish
• Icelandic
• Danish
• Norwegian

Audiobook+ plans and upcoming features

• The company will expand its Audiobook+ plans this year, offering higher listening limits and new options for students and families (pricing and usage details were not disclosed).
• Over a million Audiobook+ subscriptions have been reported, putting the platform on track for $100 million in annualized recurring revenue.
• At the Investor Day event, Spotify introduced a natural‑language question interface for audiobook discovery.
• This summer, the prompt‑based playlist feature—currently available for podcasts and music—will be extended to include audiobooks (podcast playlist source, music playlist source).

Growth of Spotify’s audiobook catalog

• The catalog now contains 700,000 titles.
• Recent initiatives include:
  • Expansion into international markets (source)
  • Investment in non‑English titles (source)
  • Enabling in‑app purchases (source)
  • Launch of audiobook charts (source)
  • A program for authors to sell physical books in the U.S. and the U.K. (source)

Spotify claims these efforts have driven a 60 % year‑on‑year increase in listening hours, with more than half of audiobook listeners having started in the past year.