Spotify Now Lets Authors Create AI Audiobooks Using ElevenLabs
Spotify just made it significantly easier for authors to get their books heard. The company unveiled a new Spotify AI audiobook creation tool at its Investor Day event on Thursday, built in partnership with voice AI startup ElevenLabs. The feature will roll out in beta this June on an invite-only basis, starting with English-language support only.
The tool lives within Spotify’s “Spotify for Authors” platform and lets writers generate AI-narrated audiobooks without signing any exclusive deal with the platform. That means authors can distribute their AI-generated audiobooks anywhere they choose, not just on Spotify.
This move deepens an existing relationship between the two companies. Spotify had previously partnered with ElevenLabs to allow writers to submit audiobooks created on ElevenLabs’ platform directly to Spotify. But this new integration brings the Spotify AI audiobook creation process entirely in-house, likely because ElevenLabs’ newer voice models offer more expressive, human-sounding narration than what was available before. For context, ElevenLabs had already launched its own self-publishing platform for authors back in 2025.
Beyond the AI narration tool, Spotify is also expanding the “Spotify for Authors” platform to support 10 additional languages, including French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, Latin American Spanish, and Canadian French. The company is also promising higher listening limits on its Audiobook+ plans, with new student and family options in the pipeline, though pricing details were not announced.
The numbers behind Spotify’s audiobook push are hard to ignore. The platform has crossed one million Audiobook+ subscriptions and is on track to hit $100 million in annualized recurring revenue. Its catalog has grown to 700,000 titles, and listening hours have jumped 60% year-on-year. More than half of its audiobook listeners only joined in the past year.
Spotify has been aggressive about building out this segment. The company has expanded to international markets, invested over $1 million in non-English titles, enabled in-app purchases, launched audiobook charts, and even started a program letting authors sell physical books in the US and UK. With Spotify AI audiobook creation now entering the picture, the platform is clearly betting that lowering the barrier to publishing will grow both supply and demand on its audiobook side.
This summer, Spotify also plans to extend its AI-prompted playlist feature already available for music and podcasts to audiobooks, and will introduce a natural language search feature to help users discover titles more easily.
