Saving Time with AI Voice Cloning

If you create content regularly, you already know the dirty little secret: sometimes the shortest pieces of content take way too much time to make.

A 30-second promo shouldn't take 30 minutes to record, but somehow it can, and it does. Find a quiet place. Set up the microphone. Record it. Mess up a line..or 3! Record it again, and again. Decide you don't like the way you said something. Do it one more time. And if you're working with a co-host, now you're trying to coordinate two schedules for something that might last less than a minute.

That's one of the reasons I've started using the voice cloning feature in ElevenLabs, and it has become one of those AI tools where I immediately saw a practical use for what we're doing with CockTails & TableTalk and Grey N Grounded.

The idea is pretty simple. ElevenLabs allows you to create a digital version of your voice using a clean audio sample. With Instant Voice Cloning, ElevenLabs recommends roughly 1–2 minutes of clear, consistent audio without background noise or reverb. Once the voice is created, you can type your script and generate new audio using your cloned voice.

That has opened up some interesting possibilities for us.

If I want to create a quick promo for an upcoming CockTails & TableTalk episode, I don't necessarily have to stop what I'm doing, set everything up and record a new voiceover. I can write the copy, generate the voiceover using my cloned voice and then build the short around it.

The same idea works with Grey N Grounded. There are times when Steve and I might want to create a short promotional piece, I don't know like The Grounded 5! Please check that out at GreyNGrounded! Or we want to do an episode announcement or some other content that doesn't require us to physically get together and record something new.

And that's really the important part of this for me.

We're not using AI to replace ourselves. We're using it to give ourselves more time to actually be ourselves.

I don't want an AI version of me hosting CockTails & TableTalk. And I don't want AI having the conversations Steve and I have on Grey N Grounded. The laughs, mistakes, disagreements, stories and spontaneous moments are what make those shows ours.

But do I need to physically sit in front of a microphone every single time I need a 20-second promotional voiceover?

Probably not.

That's where I'm beginning to see the real value of AI for small businesses and content creators. We spend a lot of time talking about what AI might eventually do. I'm becoming more interested in what it can take off my plate right now.

The process with ElevenLabs is fairly straightforward. Go into Voices, create an Instant Voice Clone, upload or record your voice sample, name the voice and confirm that you have the rights and consent to clone it. Once it's saved, the cloned voice becomes available for generating audio. ElevenLabs emphasizes that recording quality matters, so a clean recording with one speaker and minimal background noise will generally give you better results.

If you want to experiment with it yourself, ElevenLabs has a step-by-step guide here:

ElevenLabs Instant Voice Cloning Guide

One word of caution: voice cloning is powerful technology. Only clone a voice you have the appropriate rights and consent to use. ElevenLabs specifically includes a rights-and-consent confirmation as part of its cloning process.

For me, though, the biggest lesson isn't really about ElevenLabs.

It's about time.

As an entrepreneur or content creator, look at the things you do repeatedly every week and ask yourself a simple question:

Does this really require me, or does it just require something that sounds, looks or functions like something I've already created?

If technology can take care of some of that repetitive production work, that's another hour I can put toward creating a better podcast, developing another business idea, finding a guest, working on something for AubynWood Media, or simply getting some of my time back.

That's what I want TableTalk Takeaways to be about. Not chasing every new piece of technology just because it's new, but sharing things I've actually learned, tried or found useful and explaining how they might help somebody else.

This week's takeaway?

Use technology to save your time, not replace what makes you...you.

I'll see you at the table.