Keynote Address by SMS Tan Kiat How at ElevenLabs: A Singapore Exclusive

Mati Staniszewski, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ElevenLabs

Eugene Liang, General Manager, Asia, ElevenLabs

Friends from ElevenLabs.

1. Welcome to Singapore.

2. I’m very happy to see a good crowd here. It's a wonderful event – an important milestone to celebrate ElevenLabs’ opening of its Singapore office and its entry into Southeast Asia.

3. We often talk about how intelligent AI is becoming, how well it can reason, how well it can code, and how well it can solve very complex problems and mathematical questions.

4. But there is another question worth asking: How natural is AI becoming for people to use? That is why voice is so interesting.

5. Before keyboards, before touchscreens, before prompts, and before advances in technology, the most fundamental way for two people to communicate with one another was through speech. Voice remains one of the most natural ways we communicate.

6. The promise of Voice AI is not simply that machines can speak. It is that technology can understand us and interact with us more naturally.

7. In Singapore, that is not straightforward.

8. We have four official languages. We speak with a distinct Singaporean accent. We use Singlish and local expressions. Many of us switch between languages, sometimes within the same conversation.

9. Across Southeast Asia – a very diverse region – that complexity multiplies. We have different languages, accents, cultures and ways of expressing the same idea.

10. That makes Southeast Asia a demanding place to build Voice AI. But that is also what makes it an interesting place to build it.

11. If AI is going to serve the world, it has to understand the world as people actually speak it.

12. Singapore has been working on this for some time, from speech resources reflecting how Singaporeans speak to efforts such as SEA-LION and MERaLiON that seek to better reflect Southeast Asian languages and contexts.

13. Voice AI can reduce another kind of friction. Instead of learning another interface, navigating menus or finding exactly the right words for a prompt, people can just say what they need. This is especially so for our seniors and those who are not so savvy with technology.

14. The breakthrough is not that computers can sound more human. It is that interacting with computers can become more human.

15. But a better interface is only the beginning. The bigger opportunity comes when organisations start working differently because this capability exists now.

16. Voice itself is not new. We have all encountered automated phone systems: Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Mandarin. Press 3 for Malay. Choose another menu. Or press 4 to end the conversation.

17. The customer has to understand how the organisation works. AI gives us the chance to reverse that.

18. Start with what the customer wants to achieve, and let the technology work out what should happen next.

19. Imagine telling an airline: “I need to change my flight because my daughter’s birthday is tomorrow.” The system has to do more than recognise the words. It has to understand the intent, draw on context, connect to the right systems and help complete the task. And make the customer happy – it’s not so easy.

20. That is not simply a better interface. It is a different workflow. That is where the value lies.

21. It is not about replacing typing with speaking. It is about rethinking how organisations serve customers and how work gets done when AI can understand, converse and act. The results can be a better customer experience, faster resolution of requests, and more productive use of employees' time.

22. That is the kind of transformation we want to see more of – technology solving a real problem, in a real workflow, with a real outcome.

23. But the more deeply Voice AI enters our lives and businesses, the more important trust becomes.

24. Voice is personal. We recognise the voice of a family member, a loved one, a colleague or someone from our bank.

25. Generative AI is changing that. Synthetic voices can sound remarkably natural.

26. That creates enormous possibilities, but also new responsibilities. Was the voice generated with consent? Do I know whether I am speaking to a person or an AI? Who is authorised to use a particular voice? What happens to the data from that conversation? If an AI agent acts on my behalf, who is accountable? What if bad actors use this technology?

27. Those are the important questions to address, even as we adopt this technology.

28. But these are not reasons to slow innovation. They are things we need to solve so that innovation can scale - consent, authentication, data protection, cybersecurity, provenance, and accountability.

29. In Singapore, we see trust as an enabler of innovation. Good governance should not simply tell businesses what they cannot do. It should give them the confidence to do what they can.

30. That is why ElevenLabs' decision to offer data residency in Singapore is significant. Enterprise customers can host core model inference and storage on Singapore-based infrastructure, supporting requirements around data residency, security and latency.

31. As Voice AI becomes part of more sensitive interactions, these foundations will matter even more. Trust is not the brake on Voice AI. Trust is what allows Voice AI to scale.

32. That brings me to: ‘Why Singapore?’ Singapore is not the world's largest market. We do not need to pretend otherwise. But we can be a demanding proving ground.

33. We have sophisticated enterprises, strong research and engineering capabilities, trusted institutions, and good digital infrastructure. We sit at the heart of one of the world's most diverse regions and one of the fastest-growing internet regions in the world.

34. That diversity brings complexity – different languages, cultures, consumer behaviours and business environments. But there is an opportunity within that complexity.

35. If you can make Voice AI work across Southeast Asia, you are learning to solve for complexity that exists across much of the world.

36. So, Singapore can be more than an office location. It can be a place where new technologies meet demanding users, where companies work with researchers and industry partners, where solutions are tested in real operating environments, and where successful ideas can find a path into the region and beyond.

37. When companies like ElevenLabs choose to build from Singapore, they also deepen capabilities here. ElevenLabs is growing its team here across roles, from engineering and customer deployment to sales and communications. That creates opportunities for Singaporeans to build skills and careers in an exciting phase of AI.

38. That is the opportunity I see in this partnership.

39. ElevenLabs brings frontier Voice AI capabilities. Singapore provides a trusted environment for ElevenLabs to build, test and deploy them, while growing opportunities for our workers here.

40. Together, we can take what works into the region and beyond.

41. Ladies and gentlemen, AI will continue to become more capable. But the next phase is not simply about making machines more intelligent. It is about making intelligence more useful to people.

42. Technology that understands how we speak. Technology that helps organisations rethink how they work. Technology that people can trust. Technology that can operate across the diversity of our region.

43. So perhaps the opportunity can be summed up simply: understand people, redesign work, earn trust, and scale what works.

44. That is what I hope ElevenLabs will do in Singapore, and that is what I hope we can do together across Southeast Asia.

45. Congratulations to Mati, Eugene and the entire ElevenLabs team.

46. I look forward to hearing what you will build here.

47. Thank you.