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
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
