---
id: "2026-10-20-eleven-realtime-speech-to-speech"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-20-eleven-realtime-speech-to-speech/"
as_of: "2026-10-25T23:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-10-20"
date_precision: day
category: product
importance: 2
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 2
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-25"
---

As of: 2026-10-25 23:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-20-eleven-realtime-speech-to-speech/

# ElevenLabs Eleven Realtime

Full title: ElevenLabs launches Eleven Realtime v1 Max and Mini, speech-to-speech voice-agent models compatible with OpenAI's Realtime API

On Oct 20, 2026 ElevenLabs released two speech-to-speech models for voice agents: v1 Max for multi-step, tool-heavy work and v1 Mini for cheap conversation, both in 90+ languages with any of 17,000+ voices. The API mirrors OpenAI's Realtime API, so switching is mostly a change of endpoint and model name. Artificial Analysis measured Max at 98.8% on Big Bench Audio and 87.1% on tool use.

## Key facts
- Published Oct 20, 2026; two models: Eleven Realtime v1 Max (complex support and lead-qualification flows, heavy tool calling) and v1 Mini (assistants, tutors, characters)
- Artificial Analysis figures quoted by ElevenLabs: Big Bench Audio Max 98.8% / Mini 75.9%; Full-Duplex-Bench Mini 95.8% / Max 94.1%; Speech Agent Arena Max 998 / Mini 988; tool use Max 87.1% / Mini 60.3%; time to first audio ~0.57 s (Max), ~0.62 s (Mini)
- OpenAI Realtime API compatible over WebSocket (not WebRTC); OpenAI's SDK works unchanged; runs separately from the ElevenAgents platform
- AA speech-to-speech index (read 2026-10-25): v1 Max #6 of 21 (77.3)

## What happened

ElevenLabs, until now mostly a text-to-speech company, shipped end-to-end speech-to-speech models for voice agents and made them a
drop-in replacement for OpenAI's Realtime API.

## Why it matters

Voice agents are shifting from speech-to-text, LLM and text-to-speech pipelines to single speech models; ElevenLabs is competing
directly with OpenAI on that layer.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 173 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 112 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon (training cutoff March 2026): 203 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 142 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [ElevenLabs: Eleven Realtime (Oct 20)](https://elevenlabs.io/blog/realtime) (elevenlabs.io, official)
2. [ElevenLabs docs: OpenAI Realtime compatibility](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/guides/openai-realtime-compatibility) (elevenlabs.io, docs)

## Changes

- 2026-10-25 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2026-10-23: [Block unveils Dessa, a full-duplex voice model trained from scratch only on recorded human conversation, with no text and no pretrained model](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-23-block-dessa-speech-only-full-duplex-model/index.md)
- Models: [Eleven Realtime v1 Max / Mini](https://postcutoff.com/m/eleven-realtime-v1-max/) (`eleven-realtime-v1-max`)