Bengaluru startup takes on voice AI giants with budget model
Bengaluru-based Murf AI has launched Falcon 2, a new AI voice model that the company says undercuts established competitors on price while matching or beating them on performance. The text-to-speech system became publicly available on August 20, priced at $0.01 per generated minute — a fifth of what ElevenLabs charges, according to The Next Web.
At volume, the cost difference is stark: a million minutes of speech costs $10,000 on Falcon 2, against $50,000 on ElevenLabs' Turbo and Flash models, as reported by The Next Web.
Speed and benchmark claims
Falcon 2 responds in under 100 milliseconds, according to both NewsBytes and The Next Web. The company also says the model scores above some OpenAI entries, including its Realtime API, on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard, an independent platform that tracks AI performance. However, The Next Web notes that the model was not publicly available until Thursday at the time of reporting, and the comparison rests on Murf pointing to the leaderboard rather than independent testing.
This is not the first time Murf has made such a claim. The company launched the first Falcon in November 2025 with a press release saying it outperformed ElevenLabs at 55 millisecond latency, as The Next Web reported.
Company background and clientele
Murf AI was founded in 2020 by IIT Kharagpur alumni Sneha Roy, Ankur Edkie, and Divyanshu Pandey, and is backed by Matrix Partners and Elevation Capital, according to both outlets. The startup claims over 10 million users across 300 companies, including Honeywell, Cisco, Pfizer, VMware, Nestlé, and Air France-KLM.
Falcon 2 was first released to select clients before its wider launch, NewsBytes reported.
Training and features
The model's training involved real-world interactions like live customer calls and booking flows, not just scripted narration, according to NewsBytes and The Next Web. This approach aims to help the model understand the meaning of a sentence while adjusting pace, emphasis, and pronunciation accordingly, as NewsBytes reported. The same outlet noted that Falcon 2 improves voice delivery on details like currencies, dates, addresses, and license plate numbers that often confuse AI systems.
Ethical practices and data security
Murf AI's chief operating officer, Sneha Roy, said the company works with real voice actors who consent to the use of their voices, with transparent contracts, ongoing royalties, and data protection, as reported by both NewsBytes and The Next Web.
Falcon 2 offers data residency in 11 countries, deployment inside a customer's own cloud, and supports up to 10,000 concurrent calls, according to The Next Web.
Competitive landscape in Europe
ElevenLabs, Europe's flagship AI company, is in talks at a $22 billion valuation, as The Next Web reported. European institutions have already engaged with the company: Poland took an $11 million stake, and the UK government signed an agreement to use ElevenLabs' voice AI in public services.
Murf is competing on trust as well as cost, with Roy emphasizing the company's ethical voice actor practices. The Next Web's coverage frames the launch as a direct challenge to voice AI leaders, given the price advantage and the company's performance claims.