Applications
ElevenLabs’ new model transcribes speech in 90 languages faster than you can blink
TOKYO: ElevenLabs has just made real-time transcription scary good—and scary fast. The AI audio firm’s latest model, Scribe v2 Realtime, can transcribe speech in over 90 languages in less than 150 milliseconds, a speed that puts it ahead of most humans’ reaction times. Released on November 11th, it’s designed for the sort of applications where delay means disaster: voice assistants, live customer calls, medical dictation and streaming captions.
The model doesn’t just transcribe quickly—it anticipates. Through what ElevenLabs calls “negative latency prediction”, Scribe v2 Realtime can guess the next word and punctuation before a speaker finishes, keeping pace with natural conversation. It achieves 93.5 per cent accuracy on the Fleurs benchmark across 30 European and Asian languages, a figure that puts it at the top of the multilingual transcription heap.
India is central to ElevenLabs’ pitch. The model supports 11 Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Odia, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi and Sindhi. More importantly, it offers India data residency options, letting firms keep their audio data within national borders—a critical feature given India’s evolving data-protection rules.
The company, founded in 2022, already counts Meesho, Cars24, Apna, 99acres, TVS Motors, Mahindra and PocketFM among its Indian clients. Now it’s hoping Scribe v2 Realtime will help them—and others—build voice agents that sound and respond like humans, not automated phone menus.
For developers, the model offers streaming support, voice activity detection, custom vocabulary for industry-specific jargon, and speaker diarisation. There’s also a zero-retention mode for sensitive work, meaning audio never touches ElevenLabs’ servers. The model integrates with ElevenLabs Agents, the firm’s conversational AI platform, and is available now through its API.
If voice is the next interface, ElevenLabs has just made it a lot more fluent. And a lot faster
Applications
Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
