Kindred brings iconic characters to life with ElevenLabs

Kindred is bringing globally recognized IP to life as intelligent digital companions. From Astro Boy to the Teletubbies, Kindred is changing the way we interact with the characters we grew up with – transforming them into dynamic friends, capable assistants, and emotionally resonant companions.

When Kindred needed high-quality voices that could match the gravitas of iconic characters, they turned to ElevenLabs. What began as an exploration of pre-scripted content evolved into a core infrastructure choice. Our API met their performance requirements on every front: voice quality, consistency, and most importantly latency.

Voices that perform in real time

Latency is a gating factor for real-time character interaction. ElevenLabs was the only provider able to meet Kindred's requirements without compromising audio fidelity. Our API integrates seamlessly into their character backend, enabling ultra-low latency voice synthesis that remains artifact-free even under production load.

“The turning point was realizing that ElevenLabs could deliver what we considered the holy grail for conversational AI: high-quality, emotionally resonant voices with near-zero latency and remarkable consistency.” Max Giammario, CEO of Kindred

Kindred's engineering team integrated our low latency Text to Speech with minimal friction, unlocking natural dialogue across their entire platform.

From chatbot to companion

Through the ElevenLabs Startup Grant Program, Kindred deployed Turbo across its full user base, enabling every user to interact with a fully voiced AI character.

This shift turned their static chatbot into an emotionally engaging, real-time partner. After integrating with ElevenLabs, user session lengths increased by 34% for AI-driven conversations, and users now spend an average of over six hours per day with their Kindred companion on-screen.

Building the future of AI character interaction

“For the first time in history, the world’s most beloved characters are being given a voice, and that voice is powered by ElevenLabs,” said Max Giammario, CEO of Kindred. “We’re honored to build the next generation of character interaction with ElevenLabs' support.”

Kindred is charting the next era in character interaction: where emotional connection meets functional intelligence. And ElevenLabs provides the voice that makes it possible.

Looking to build voice agents people actually talk to? Get in touch here.