India's Murf AI introduces Falcon 2 to compete with leaders in voice AI.

      Murf AI, based in Bangalore, is set to launch its Falcon 2 voice model on August 20, priced at $0.01 per generated minute, which is a fifth of the cost charged by ElevenLabs. The company claims that its model performs better than some OpenAI models as per the independent Artificial Analysis leaderboard.

      A company from Bangalore is marketing synthetic speech at a significantly lower price than Europe’s leading voice AI startup. Murf AI will make its Falcon 2 model available on August 20, costing $0.01 for each generated minute.

      When considering volume, the financial implications are significant. Utilizing Falcon 2 for a million minutes of speech would amount to $10,000, whereas ElevenLabs Turbo and Flash would cost $50,000.

      The performance assertion adds intrigue to the pricing. Murf states that Falcon 2 surpasses some OpenAI models, including its Realtime API, on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard, with response times of under 100 milliseconds.

      However, this claim requires careful examination. The model will not be publicly accessible until Thursday, and the comparison arises from a third-party leaderboard rather than direct production testing.

      This is the second instance in nine months that Murf is making such claims. In November 2025, the company introduced its first Falcon, claiming it outperformed ElevenLabs with a latency of 55 milliseconds.

      Murf is a serious venture, founded in 2020 by three engineers from IIT Kharagpur, and is supported by Matrix Partners and Elevation Capital. The company reports having 10 million users and 300 corporate customers, including Cisco, Pfizer, Nestlé, and Air France-KLM.

      This development is particularly relevant in Europe due to the target audience. ElevenLabs is seen as the continent’s prominent AI company, currently negotiating at a $22 billion valuation, based on the assertion that its voices are superior.

      Murf is also competing on trust in addition to cost. Chief Operating Officer Sneha Roy emphasizes that the company collaborates with real voice actors who agree to the use of their voices, ensuring transparent contracts, ongoing royalties, and data protection.

      European institutions have already chosen their preferred side financially. Poland invested $11 million in ElevenLabs, while the UK government has signed a deal to implement its voice AI in public services.

      The remaining features of Falcon 2 focus on enterprise capabilities. It provides data residency in 11 countries, deployment within the client’s own cloud, supports up to 10,000 concurrent calls, and offers training based on actual customer interactions and booking processes rather than scripted narration.

      Europe has been promoting quality and trust with the assumption that price would naturally align with that quality. A model that claims similar performance metrics at a fifth of the price represents a significant challenge to this established order.