Supernova scales multilingual AI tutoring with ElevenLabs voices

Supernova is consistently ranked among the top education apps in India and serves a large, growing base of English learners across the country. Their goal is to make high-quality speaking practice accessible to anyone who wants to improve fluency. Speaking remains one of the hardest skills to develop, largely due to the high cost of live instruction and limited availability of qualified tutors.

Most Indian learners process information through their mother tongue. With ElevenLabs Text to Speech and voices, Supernova designed its AI tutor around this reality, offering explanations, corrections, and encouragement in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi, Odia, and Assamese.

To support this multilingual model at scale, Supernova needed voices that were natural, culturally aligned, and easy for learners to follow.

Selecting a voice engine that works for India

Supernova evaluated several Text to Speech providers, including OpenAI, Chirp, and Amazon Polly. While most produced acceptable English output, they lacked the natural pacing, emotional nuance, and intonation needed for Indian languages. These gaps reduced clarity and made lessons harder to follow.

ElevenLabs stood out for its expressive delivery and accurate pronunciation across Tamil, Hindi, and other regional languages. The system captured subtle changes in tone and timing that helped learners understand explanations more quickly. These characteristics directly supported Supernova’s approach of teaching English through the learner’s native language.

Supernova now uses ElevenLabs across all major learning moments:

• Localized voiceovers and grammar guidance
• Bilingual translation exercises
• Contextual explanations when learners get stuck
• Real-time, low-latency guidance using streaming TTS

Integration required minimal engineering effort. ElevenLabs’ documentation and API design enabled Supernova to move from testing to deployment within days.

With ElevenLabs we moved past robotic-sounding narration. Our learners hear guidance that feels human, warm, and responsive — that subtle difference makes all the difference.

Impact: clearer guidance, higher engagement, and stronger retention

Since adopting ElevenLabs, Supernova has recorded measurable gains across core learning metrics:

These improvements occurred without changes to lesson content, user interface, or promotions. The enhanced voice experience was the primary driver.

Learner behavior reflected the same trend. Supernova saw higher daily usage consistency, deeper engagement within multi-step lessons, and fewer comprehension issues in Tamil and Hindi explanations. Internal surveys reported clearer, more natural delivery compared to earlier providers.

Latency reductions further strengthened the experience. ElevenLabs’ low-latency models supported smooth turn-taking and removed noticeable gaps between prompts, making the AI tutor feel more responsive and reducing friction for first-time learners.

Technical integration: optimized for scale

Supernova integrated ElevenLabs as the core voice engine across its multilingual tutoring system. The implementation used:

• Text to Speech for lesson narration and localized explanations
• Streaming Text to Speech with ElevenLabs Flash V2.5 for low-latency, real-time guidance
• Stability, similarity, and style controls to fine-tune delivery for Indian languages
• Pronunciation dictionaries to refine Tamil and Hindi performance
  

Performance Characteristics

Independent evaluations and internal testing showed:

• Pronunciation accuracy of ~82 percent across supported languages
• Time-to-first-audio of roughly 250 ms for responsive interactions
• Reliable scaling across regions with minimal operational overhead
  

Extending Supernova’s reach with AI-generated calls

Supernova also uses ElevenLabs voices through third-party calling platforms such as Ring and Bolna. These calls include:

• Transactional reminders
• Sales lead-generation workflows
• Onboarding sequences

English and Hindi voices provide clear, culturally appropriate guidance across all call types, which improved user comprehension and led to higher call completion rates.

Impact on Supernova’s broader mission

Supernova aims to make consistent speaking practice accessible at a cost point that works for most learners. Traditional spoken-English instruction often costs 8,000 to 16,000 INR per month, and live tutors can charge 500 to 1,200 INR per hour. These constraints limit access to continuous practice.

With an AI tutor priced under $5 per month, Supernova provides repeatable speaking practice with immediate feedback and localized explanations. This model supports faster comprehension, higher confidence, and broader reach across India’s diverse linguistic regions

If you’re building personalized tutoring agents, multilingual learning tools, or any system where clarity and trust matter, discover what’s possible with ElevenLabs Agents platform.