A few weeks ahead of the debut of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” a new, entirely AI-generated audiobook version of Homer’s Ancient Greek epic has been released featuring a clone of Michael Caine’s voice.
The new audiobook comes several months after it was announced in late 2025 that Caine had licensed his voice to ElevenLabs, an artificial intelligence company that uses clones of actors’ voices for audiobooks and other AI-generated content. The 13-hour audiobook was released Tuesday and is currently available for free on ElevenLabs’ ElevenReader platform.
In addition to Caine’s voice replica, the audiobook features 20 other AI-generated voices, as well as AI-generated SFX and music. It was produced by a team of four producers in just six weeks’ time. The audiobook uses an English translation of Homer’s epic that was written by William Cullen Bryant in the 1870s and is now a part of the public domain.
Caine, for his part, reached an agreement last November that brought an AI clone of his voice to ElevenLabs’ Iconic Marketplace, a platform that allows companies and other interested parties to license the famous voices available on it.
“‘The Odyssey’ is one of the greatest stories ever told,” Caine said in a statement shared Tuesday by ElevenLabs. “By bridging classical storytelling with digital innovation, this timeless epic is reimagined for modern audiences, brought vividly to life through ElevenReader’s cutting-edge technology.”
Jack McDermott, ElevenLabs’ head of mobile growth and marketing, told the New York Times that the company saw in the upcoming release of Nolan’s “The Odyssey” not only heightened mainstream interest in the film’s enduring source material, but also a chance for ElevenLabs to showcase the potential uses of its licensable AI-generated voice clones.
“The idea was, ‘What would be an amazing piece of content to show what’s possible in the responsible use of AI voice featuring an iconic voice?’” he explained. “On the one hand, it’s about great storytelling. At the same time, this has a really great effect of showing creators around the world, and authors, what can be done with ElevenReader.”
Caine, a frequent collaborator of Nolan’s, does not appear in the filmmaker’s forthcoming Homer adaptation, which stars Matt Damon, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Zendaya, among others, and is set to hit theaters in the U.S. on July 17.
ElevenLabs’ AI-generated “Odyssey” audiobook comes at a time when tech companies like Amazon and Google are investing increasingly in AI across mediums. Platforms like Spotify and Alexa+ have become flooded as of late with AI-generated content, though it is unclear just how widespread consumer interest is in it right now.
The discourse surrounding AI content, meanwhile, remains as divided and impassioned as ever, as was evidenced last year by the outrage online that came when Caine and fellow actor Matthew McConaughey’s partnerships with ElevenLabs were announced. There was a similar response recently to filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s partnership with a company specializing in AI-generated storyboarding and visual effects pre-visualization.
Dustin Blank, who oversees talent and strategic partnerships for ElevenLabs, told NYT that it will be consumers who decide the place AI-generated audiobooks, podcasts, shows and movies have in the cultural landscape.
“Audiences will decide, at the end of the day,” he said. “It’s up to them. No one’s forcing this in our ears.”
