9 AI Voice Tools for Better CX: Here’s My Verdict

You have probably sat through a demo where an artificial intelligence (AI) voice sounded incredible, clear, expressive, and almost human. Then you tried plugging it into your actual phone system and realized it couldn’t route calls or hand them off to a live agent. I have watched CX teams burn weeks on this loop.

The AI-powered voice generator market is projected to grow from $4.16 billion in 2025 to $20.71 billion by 2031, according to MarketsandMarkets. The technology is real, and high-quality AI voices are now table stakes. But choosing the right tool still comes down to whether it can do more than sound good. It needs to work inside your CX.

Venture capital funding for voice AI surged from roughly $315 million in 2022 to $2.1 billion in 2024. That’s nearly a 7x increase in two years. The money is flowing, but the gap between what gets funded and what works in a contact center is still wide.

Here’s what I have learned evaluating AI voice tools for CX teams that need results, not just audio files.

What Are AI Voice Tools?

AI voice tools use neural text-to-speech (TTS), voice cloning, and speech synthesis to generate human-like audio from text. They let businesses create voiceovers, audiobooks, IVR prompts, support content, and conversational experiences without recording a human every time.

For CX teams, the value is speed and consistency. You can update a hold message in minutes instead of scheduling studio time. You get to create multilingual support content without hiring voice actors for each language, and you can scale audio across channels without sacrificing quality.

What these tools are not: AI voice tools are not full customer service platforms. A voice tool generates audio. It doesn’t answer questions, manage call flows, or integrate with your CRM on its own. That distinction matters more than most buyers realize.

AI voice tools vs. voice agents vs. virtual receptionists

These three categories are constantly mixed up, and comparing them side by side leads to bad decisions. Here’s how they differ:

Category	What it does	Best for
AI voice tools	Generates AI voiceover, clones voices, dubs content, controls pacing and tone	IVR prompts, training voiceovers, support content
Voice agents	Adds dialogue management, intent detection, and tool calling on top of voice	Automated call handling, lead qualification
Virtual receptionists and CX platforms	Adds routing, scheduling, logging, escalation, and omnichannel workflows	End-to-end CX across phone, text, and chat

An AI tool for voice gives you TTS audio, a voice agent gives you the conversation, and a CX platform gives you the workflow. Most teams need at least two of these layers working together.

Which AI voice use cases actually move CX metrics?

Not every use case of AI voice agents justifies the investment. These are the ones I have seen move real numbers:

• IVR and call flow prompts: Natural-sounding prompts reduce friction and lower abandonment rates. Robotic IVR menus still push callers to zero out immediately.
• After-hours answering: Capturing intent and routing correctly when your team is offline keeps leads from going cold overnight.
• Appointment setting and lead intake: Consistent brand voice across every scheduling call builds trust, especially for healthcare, legal, and home services.
• Proactive outbound reminders: Automated reminders that sound human reduce no-shows without tying up agents.
• Multilingual support content: Scaling to new languages without constant rerecording saves weeks of production time.
• Voiceover for onboarding and training content: A consistent AI voiceover across training modules saves production time and keeps your brand voice uniform.

What Should CX Teams Look for When Choosing an AI Voice Tool?

Here’s an overview of what the CX team should look for in an AI voice tool.

The practical evaluation script

Most teams audition AI voices the wrong way — they type a clean sentence and listen using good speakers. That tells you almost nothing about how the voice will perform in a real support scenario.

Instead, build a short test script that includes:

• A greeting and a simple policy explanation
• A confirmation code or phone number (tests number pronunciation)
• An escalation request (“I’d like to speak with a manager”)
• One emotional moment (“I understand this is frustrating”)
• One interruption midsentence
• One correction (“Actually, that’s spelled differently”)

Then evaluate the output for cadence, pauses, pronunciation accuracy, and whether the voice stays composed under changes. Play it through a phone line, not studio headphones.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 70% of customers will use a conversational AI interface to start their service journey. Your AI voice needs to hold up in those first seconds.

The CX scorecard

When comparing tools, score each one against these criteria:

• Naturalness and intelligibility on phone audio: Studio quality doesn’t matter if it degrades over a cell connection.
• Voice cloning quality and minimum sample length: Some tools need 30 minutes of clean audio, while others claim instant cloning from short clips.
• Controls for pronunciation, pacing, emphasis, and style: The more granular your settings, the fewer retakes you’ll need.
• Multilingual capability: This is critical if you serve multiple regions.
• Integrations and APIs: They matter when you’re embedding voice into automated CX workflows.
• Security, data retention, and licensing: These are relevant for regulated industries.
• Monitoring, logging, and handoff: They’re non-negotiable for anything customer facing.

What guardrails do you need for AI voice cloning?

Voice cloning excites executives and terrifies compliance teams in equal measure. Here’s the baseline I recommend for any business deploying cloned voices:

• Require documented consent: Allowno exceptions for any voice that gets cloned.
• Separate internal voices from customer-facing voices: Your training narration voice shouldn’t be your IVR voice unless you make a deliberate decision.
• Maintain an approved script library: Ensure that no one improvises using a cloned voice in regulated or sensitive scenarios.
• Publish a simple disclosure policy: When synthetic voices are customer-facing, transparency builds trust; hiding it erodes it.

The Best AI Voice Tools for CX

With 85% of customer service leaders planning to explore or pilot conversational generative AI solutions (Gartner), the pressure to pick the right tool is real.

Here’s how the top AI voice generators stack up for CX use cases.

1. ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs has earned its reputation as the quality benchmark among AI voice generators. Its voice realism is a differentiator. ElevenLabs delivers highly realistic voices. One reviewer on Product Hunt called it “the gold standard” and noted that “no other TTS provider comes close to this level of quality.”

The platform supports expressive controls, such as emotional cues like whispers and laughter, that make customer-facing audio sound less mechanical.

The enterprise traction is hard to ignore. ElevenLabs closed 2025 with over $330 million in ARR, and developers have built over 2 million conversational AI voice agents on the platform. In February 2026, the company raised $500 million in a Series D funding at an $11 billion valuation.

What to watch:

• Check credit system: Users on both Trustpilot and Product Hunt report credits consumed on failed or glitchy generations. At scale, this adds up.
• Voice consistency between sessions: Even with stability parameters configured, one reviewer noted “subtle variations in energy, pacing, or emotional tone between calls,” which is noticeable in customer-facing applications.

The bigger governance question: does high-quality cloning increase the risk of misuse?

Teams deploying ElevenLabs for CX should implement clear consent policies, voice access controls, and audit trails. The tool is powerful enough that careless deployment creates real brand risk.

2. Nextiva XBert

Most AI voice tools stop at generating audio. XBert starts where those tools end: answering the call, figuring out what the customer needs, and completing the task.

Why it ranks second for CX:

XBert functions as an AI receptionist that handles phone calls, texts, and web chats. When paired with Nextiva’s unified CXM platform, those conversations extend across email, WhatsApp, and Instagram, keeping context intact across every channel.

It books appointments with real-time calendar integration, captures leads into your CRM, answers FAQs from your knowledge base, and routes calls to the right person with full context. When a conversation needs a human, XBert transfers it with a summary of everything that happened, so the customers never have to repeat themselves.

This matters because the real CX problem isn’t voice quality. It’s the gap between a great-sounding greeting and a resolved request. A Nextiva-sponsored survey of over 1,000 CX leaders, conducted by Dimensional Research, found that 98% say smooth AI-to-human handoffs are critical.

Here’s what I’ve seen happen in pilots:

• A team invests weeks evaluating voice generators.
• It picks one with beautiful output.
• Then, the team realizes that the software can’t schedule an appointment or log the interaction.

That’s the moment where XBert’s value becomes obvious. It doesn’t compete with ElevenLabs on voice realism. It competes on whether the customer’s problem actually gets solved.

Nextiva XBert starts at $99 per month for up to 100 interactions, then $0.99 per additional interaction. A 30-day money-back guarantee reduces the commitment risk.

One fitness studio franchise owner saw leads jump 40% in a single week after switching to XBert: “We used to miss 10–15 calls a day. Now every single call gets answered.” See how businesses like yours are using XBert.

3. PlayHT

PlayHT was a developer-friendly AI TTS platform with streaming APIs and good options for embedding voice into apps and support workflows. Product teams used it for building voice into customer-facing products at a reasonable price point.

Meta acquired Play AI on July 12, 2025. The API was shut down on July 26, 2025, and the entire platform was retired by December 31, 2025. Thousands of users, including businesses relying on PlayHT for production audio, were left scrambling for alternatives with minimal notice.

The fallout was severe. Trustpilot shows a 2.4 out of 5 rating across 316 reviews, with users reporting:

• Lifetime deal holders from AppSumo had their plans downgraded to free without compensation.
• Enterprise plan subscribers experienced nonfunctional service midsubscription, with no support response.
• Unauthorized charges and missing cancellation options were widely reported.

Why this matters for your evaluation:

PlayHT’s shutdown is a case study in platform risk.

When a tool your CX operation depends on disappears, the cost isn’t just the subscription; it’s rerecording content, migrating integrations, retraining workflows, and handling the gap in service while you scramble.

Before committing to any AI voice tool, ask what happens to your audio assets, custom voices, and API integrations if the company is acquired, pivots, or shuts down. The answer should be part of your evaluation scorecard.

4. Murf

Murf is built for narration and the content side of CX: training voiceovers, onboarding walkthroughs, explainer videos, and IVR prompts where clarity matters more than conversational ability.

It has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 based on 1,413 reviews across popular review platforms. Ease of use is the most praised attribute across all review platforms. G2 alone has 258 mentions of it. Users, from educators to SaaS teams, describe the interface as intuitive and beginner-friendly.

For CX teams that produce support, education, and internal enablement content, Murf helps expedite workflows that used to take days. One user on Capterra described generating 150 minutes of voiceover within a single day.

Murf ran a free six-month subscription program for displaced PlayHT users after that platform shut down. This signals confidence in retention through product quality rather than lock-in.

What to watch:

Pricing seems to be a theme that raises several concerns from reviewers. Key features like voice cloning are locked behind the Enterprise plan.

Voice quality is strong for English (American and British), but reviewers flag that Australian accents sound “stilted with a recognizable AI tone.”

Murf is best suited for content creation and internal enablement. If your primary need is live phone conversations or real-time customer interactions, this might not be the tool for that job at present. Maybe it evolves, let’s see.

5. WellSaid Labs

WellSaid Labs is built for enterprise teams that need compliance-first voice generation. The platform holds SOC 2 Type 2 certification, and every voice is created from consenting, compensated professional voice actors, not scraped public data. For regulated industries like healthcare, finance, and government, this matters.

G2 comparison data show that WellSaid edges ElevenLabs in ease of setup (9.6 vs. 8.9) and application integration (8.6 vs. 7.8). One reviewer noted it “solves the problem of rerecording simple mistakes instantly,” with useful controls over tone, pace, and pitch.

The strongest use case is corporate learning and enablement. It has integrations with Articulate, Adobe Premiere Pro, and LMS workflows, making it practical for teams already working within these ecosystems.

What to watch:

Enterprise L&D professionals who get dedicated support love the product. Individual creators and small businesses who encounter restrictive plans, preselected voices, and no refund options after 24 hours do not.

6. Speechify

Speechify turns long-form help content into audio experiences. If your team publishes knowledge base articles, policy documents, or training guides, Speechify lets customers and internal teams listen instead of read. Trustpilot rates it 4.6 out of 5 based on 5,199 reviews, and the App Store gives it 4.7 out of 5 across 457K ratings.

The accessibility angle and cross-platform support are the differentiators. A single subscription works across iOS, Android, Mac, Chrome extension, Edge, and the web app.

For CX use cases, the practical value is turning dense support documentation into listenable content. This is helpful for customers who prefer audio or have accessibility needs.

What to watch:

Billing and subscription practices are the most documented concern, with a consistent pattern across BBB and Trustpilot reviews.

The good news is that Trustpilot’s overall pattern shows that the support team actively resolves complaints when users reach out.

Speechify is not typically the first pick for deeply integrated customer-facing call flows. Its strength lies in content consumption and accessibility, not in real-time dialogue or CRM-connected workflows.

7. Hume

Hume is an AI voice platform built around emotional intelligence. Its Empathic Voice Interface (EVI) produces natural-sounding speech that detects and mirrors vocal emotion with real-time accuracy. In empathetic support scenarios, where a frustrated customer calls in or a patient needs reassurance, that emotional awareness changes how the interaction feels.

In Hume’s own evaluation, EVI 3 was preferred over OpenAI’s ChatGPT-powered GPT-4o across categories tested. Developers like it because it’s LLM-agnostic. It works with Claude, GPT, Gemini, and Llama, which means teams aren’t locked into a single AI stack, giving you flexibility in your choice of LLM.

What to watch:

Product Hunt reviewers flagged limited non-English performance and missing export options.

Integration requires developer resources. This is not a plug-and-play tool for a CX manager who wants to set up IVR prompts. Before committing, teams should validate multilingual needs and production readiness with real call scenarios, not just demos.

8. Resemble AI

Resemble AI leads with governance and security. Deepfake detection (Resemble Detect), invisible audio watermarking, and on-premises deployment options make it the compliance-first choice for teams where voice authenticity and provenance are non-negotiable.

For CX teams building voice-cloning governance plans, the watermarking and detection features provide an audit trail that most other platforms lack. G2 rates Resemble AI at 3.9 out of 5 based on 21 reviews, with enterprise users praising its API flexibility and voice quality.

One reviewer noted that the Resemble team held meetings with them and their voice talent to improve the product. It reflects a level of enterprise collaboration that smaller platforms rarely offer.

What to watch:

Multiple users report being charged despite promises of a “free clone” or “free trial”. 78% of its reviews on TrustPilot are one-star. The company hasn’t responded to these reviews yet.

Additionally, the quality of voice cloning is inconsistent. A reviewer noted that “voice cloning requires some adjustment so you don’t sound funny on certain words/phrases.”

9. Lovo

Lovo (branded as Genny) is an all-in-one creative platform that combines TTS, voice cloning, video editing, subtitle generation, and AI writing in a single interface. For content creation teams, that breadth is genuinely unique. No other tool on this list packages this many content-creation capabilities.

For CX content teams, the practical value is producing marketing videos, podcast intros, and social media content from a single tool.

What to watch:

Lovo’s Trustpilot rating is 1.9 out of 5 from 77 reviews, and the trajectory through 2025 and into 2026 is concerning. Multiple January 2026 reviews independently report that the platform has become unusable due to server errors and declining quality.

Given the 2026 reliability reports, test thoroughly on the free plan and avoid annual billing commitments until the platform is more stable.

Recommended Shortlist by Use Case

Here’s what I would recommend for specific use cases.

If you need the best voice cloning and expressiveness

Start with ElevenLabs. Its voice quality is the benchmark, and it has decent cloning depth. If governance and watermarking are priorities, evaluate Resemble AI alongside ElevenLabs. Resemble’s deepfake detection and on-premise deployment options are features that other platforms on this list don’t offer.

For teams in regulated industries that need compliance-first voice generation, WellSaid Labs is the governance path. It holds the SOC 2 Type 2 certification and uses voices built exclusively from consent, making it a safe choice for healthcare, finance, and government use cases.

If you need a voice that resolves customer requests

Voice generation alone won’t answer a customer’s question or book their appointment. If your goal is end-to-end handling across channels, Nextiva XBert is built for that job. It answers calls, captures intent, routes to the right person, follows up automatically, and keeps conversations consistent across phone, text, and chat.

A dental office using XBert now books 25 additional appointments per week, which is thousands of dollars in new revenue monthly.

If you’re building voice into a product

PlayHT was the go-to recommendation for API streaming and developer flexibility. After Meta acquired PlayHT in July 2025 and the platform’s full shutdown by December 2025, that recommendation no longer stands.

ElevenLabs’ API ecosystem is a good option for product teams. For teams that need emotional awareness layered into voice interactions, Hume’s EVI API offers a compelling alternative. For either path, build your integration with a fallback plan. The PlayHT shutdown is a reminder that no vendor is guaranteed to exist in its current form a year from now.

How Should CX Teams Run an AI Voice Pilot?

Gartner projects that by 2029, agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues without human intervention. But getting there starts with small, controlled pilots, not a full rip and replace.

Week one: Pick one journey and make it boring

Choose one call type that is high volume and low complexity.

Good candidates:

• Business hours and location inquiries
• Appointment scheduling
• Order status or account verification

Keep the scope tight so quality and routing issues surface quickly. You want problems to appear now, not after you have scaled to 20 call types.

Week two: Add escalation and reporting

Define what gets escalated to humans and how. This means:

• Warm transfer rules: When does the AI hand off mid-conversation?
• Callback workflows: What happens when a live agent isn’t available?
• Transcript and summary storage: How are conversations reviewed and used for coaching?

This is where teams often discover that a beautiful AI voice doesn’t help if the escalation path is broken. Routing and logging matter more than voice quality at this stage.

Week three: Expand to bilingual and omnichannel

If your customers mix phone and text, test cross-channel continuity:

• Can the AI maintain context when a customer calls and then follow up via text?
• Is translation accuracy holding up in real business conditions, not just scripted demos?

Only 20% of customer service leaders report AI-driven headcount reductions, while 55% report stable staffing while handling higher volumes, according to a Gartner survey of 321 leaders.

The goal of a pilot isn’t to replace your team. It’s to give them room to focus on the interactions that actually need a human. This is also where you test whether your voice tool and your CX platform are actually integrated or just sitting next to each other.

For Well-Rounded CX, You Can’t Go Wrong With XBert

Remember the loop from the intro with a great demo and a beautiful voice, but then weeks spent realizing it can’t route a call? That gap between sounding human and solving the problem is where most CX teams stall.

ElevenLabs is the top pick when voice quality and cloning matter most. But voice quality alone won’t answer a customer’s scheduling question or hand off to a live agent when things get complex. That’s the gap Nextiva fills.

XBert answers the call, captures intent, routes correctly, and follows up across phone, text, and chat. Routine calls get handled consistently, and your team steps in only for exceptions. The difference between a cool audio demo and a real CX upgrade isn’t the voice. It’s the system behind it.

See XBert in action. Book a free demo, and find out how many calls your business is missing.

FAQs About the Best AI Voice Tools

Here are a few questions people often ask when evaluating the best AI voice tools.