AI voices in advertising: Amplifying creativity or diminishing authenticity?

Three months ago, TIME magazine set out to reshape storytelling through generative AI, aiming to enhance how audiences engage with its journalism. Partnering with Scale AI, it introduced TIME AI—an interactive platform designed to offer dynamic content experiences.

The tool debuted alongside TIME’s 2024 Person of the Year cover featuring Donald Trump, offering Q&A capabilities, conversational interactions, article summaries, translations, and audio versions of past honourees such as Trump, Taylor Swift, Zelenskyy, and Musk.

As AI-generated voices become increasingly sophisticated, brands are exploring how they can carve out unique sonic identities in an era where voice-driven interactions are becoming the norm. From AI-powered customer engagement to multilingual advertising, this technology is evolving rapidly.

But as the industry weighs efficiency against authenticity, a crucial question emerges: will AI voices replace human voiceover artists, or will they serve as creative allies in the process?

AI in advertising: Enhancing, not replacing

For Siddharth Srinivasan, go-to-market (GTM) at ElevenLabs, the answer lies in collaboration. “AI voices expand creative possibilities, and the best results come from combining AI with human creativity. Brands are already using AI to speed up iteration, maintain consistency across languages, and explore new sonic identities,” he explains to Campaign.

ElevenLabs wants to position itself at the forefront of this transformation. It offers tools that allow brands to experiment with AI-generated voices while maintaining high creative standards.

Its Voice Library enables voice actors to share AI-cloned versions of their voices and earn royalties, while licensing deals ensure that professional voice talent remains part of the process. Since January 2023, over 5,000 voices have been uploaded to the Voice Library, generating over $2 million in payouts.

AI voices are already making waves in customer service and automation. “The key to engagement is natural, human-like interaction,” says Srinivasan. “When it feels real, people stay engaged. When it feels robotic, they move on.” Brands are deploying AI voice agents to handle routine queries, reducing wait times and improving user experience. This shift isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about making interactions more intuitive and accessible.

However, trust remains a key concern. According to Audacy's Innovation Tracker, people are more than twice as likely to trust a human voice (55%) over AI-generated content (23%). This underscores that when consumers sense artificiality, they disengage.

A brand’s communication style shapes its identity and builds audience trust. Traditionally, crafting and maintaining a distinct tone required manual effort and subjective judgment. Now, AI is reshaping this process.

Multilingual storytelling: A new approach to localisation

By using machine learning and data-driven insights, brands can refine their messaging with greater accuracy. AI enables consistent, personalised interactions across platforms, ensuring adaptability while preserving authenticity—making brand communication more precise, efficient, and impactful than ever before.

In an increasingly globalised market, brands also need to communicate seamlessly across languages. AI is redefining how they approach localisation versus transcreation.

“AI makes it easier for brands to speak to audiences in their own language—without losing tone, emotion, or nuance,” says Srinivasan. “Instead of one-size-fits-all messaging, brands can now adjust their voice naturally for different markets. More than just translation, it preserves intent and emotion.”

This has major implications for global advertising campaigns. Instead of dubbing content in a detached manner, brands can use AI voices that retain the natural cadence, emphasis, and expressiveness of the original message. It allows companies to scale their messaging without compromising cultural sensitivity.

For its 2020 Diwali campaign, Mondelēz collaborated with Respeecher to create personalised advertisements featuring Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's AI-cloned voice. It produced customised endorsements for thousands of local Indian stores, helping them attract more shoppers during the festive season in the midst of the pandemic.

This campaign’s innovative use of AI voice cloning gained significant attention in the advertising world—similarly, the 2023 ‘Say it with Oreo’ campaign made waves. It utilised AI to deliver personalised voice messages from actor Farhan Akhtar to millions of users. Crafted and voiced in the actor’s style by ChatGPT and Resemble AI, respectively, the campaign ensured brand safety through collaboration with Webpurify. This approach allowed for mass personalisation while retaining the natural expressiveness of the original message. ​

AI-driven voice technology is making significant inroads into media, entertainment, and gaming. “Imagine a campaign that shifts tone based on context, an audiobook that adds thunder to a stormy scene, or an interactive ad that responds to the listener in real time,” says Srinivasan.

A prime example is ElevenLabs' collaboration with Aston Martin’s F1 team. They created a digital avatar of Fernando Alonso to enhance fan engagement. AI-generated voices are also enhancing interactive content, gaming, and voiceover work for films and commercials, enabling unprecedented levels of dynamism.

Creativity versus efficiency: Striking the right balance

While AI can accelerate content production, the challenge is ensuring it doesn’t come at the cost of creativity. “AI takes care of repetitive tasks like prototyping voiceovers or ensuring continuity so creatives can focus on storytelling itself,” says Srinivasan.

In May 2021, The Washington Post announced plans to enhance its digital experience by integrating Amazon Polly, an AI-powered text-to-speech service, to provide audio versions of its stories. The rollout began with technology articles, allowing busy readers to consume news hands-free.

“Whether multitasking or taking a walk, audio makes engaging with our journalism more convenient,” said Kat Down Mulder, the then-managing editor and chief product officer of The Washington Post. “Last year, readers who listened to audio articles engaged over three times longer. We’re committed to expanding in this space.”  

In advertising, AI enables teams to refine ideas more quickly, explore creative directions, and iterate on campaigns before final production. In 2022, Heinz tapped into AI to reinforce its brand identity. Using DALL·E 2, it generated images based on the word ‘ketchup’, which overwhelmingly resembled Heinz’s signature bottle. This campaign strengthened brand recognition and engaged audiences by encouraging them to create and share their own AI-generated ketchup visuals.

A year before, for its 8 Series Gran Coupé, BMW partnered with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to project AI-created artwork onto the car’s surface. This fusion of technology and creativity enhanced the campaign’s emotional appeal and showcased AI’s potential in producing striking visual content.

Last year, Coca-Cola integrated AI-generated advertisements into a recent holiday campaign, demonstrating how AI can efficiently produce personalised content. During its earnings call, the brand claimed that it now dedicates 60% of its media-buying budget to digital advertising, enabling the rapid creation of thousands of ad variations. These examples illustrate AI’s growing influence in advertising, helping brands create dynamic, tailored, and efficient campaigns.

Addressing ethical concerns: Deepfakes and misinformation

With AI-generated voices becoming virtually indistinguishable from human voices, concerns around misuse are mounting. Deepfake audio and misinformation pose significant risks, prompting companies like ElevenLabs to implement safeguards.

“We develop our tools mindful of their impact, balancing safety with innovation,” says Srinivasan. “Our approach focuses on traceability, moderation, and provenance. We’ve built AI transparency tools like our AI Speech Classifier, which lets the public verify whether an audio clip could have been AI-generated.”

Industry-wide collaboration is key to maintaining ethical AI development. ElevenLabs works with partners like Reality Defender to advance detection methods, ensuring that AI remains a force for good.

India represents a major growth opportunity for ElevenLabs. The company recently raised $180 million in Series C funding, co-led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from investors like Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and NEA. This round brings ElevenLabs' valuation to $3.3 billion, reinforcing its commitment to AI-powered voice innovation.

“India is our fastest-growing market,” says Srinivasan. “With incredible linguistic diversity and a massive demand for local-language content, voice AI is a natural fit.”

ElevenLabs is investing in Indic language support, refining AI models to capture regional accents and dialects. By doing so, it aims to provide Indian advertisers and content creators with AI voices that feel authentic and resonate with local audiences.

The rise of AI-generated voices doesn’t spell the end for human voice actors, but rather an evolution in how brands approach audio branding. The technology offers efficiency, scalability, and personalisation, but human creativity remains irreplaceable.

For brands, the challenge is clear: leverage AI to enhance storytelling without losing the emotional connection that makes voice such a powerful medium. As AI voices become more refined, brands that strike the right balance between technology and human artistry will be the ones that stand out.