Text-to-speech APIs: AI search visibility ranking (2026)
How AI search engines rank text-to-speech apis by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured monthly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Text-to-speech APIs used by product teams to generate natural voice output for apps, assistants, accessibility, and media workflows. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →
Refreshed Jun 18, 2026Download this ranking as a PDF
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At a glance
What we observed in this categoryauto-generated
ElevenLabs holds the sole top position with a composite score of 12.5, the only brand to achieve both visibility and citation at 12.5% each. The category average sits at just 1.2% for both metrics, meaning ElevenLabs outperforms the average by more than ten times. Cartesia shares the same 12.5% visibility score but records zero citation, producing a composite of only 8.8. That gap between the two leaders illustrates how visibility alone does not translate into trusted citation within this category.
The divergence between named and trusted brands is stark across the top five. Cartesia appears in AI responses at 12.5% visibility but is never cited as a source, suggesting Google AI Mode describes it without anchoring to its domain. Google Cloud shows the inverse pattern, zero visibility but 12.5% citation, meaning its domain is referenced as a source even when the brand is not named in the narrative. Deepgram, OpenAI, Amazon Polly, and Microsoft Azure all score zero on both metrics despite their general brand strength.
All ten ranked brands list Google AI Mode as their top engine, confirming the audit data is drawn entirely from that single source. The top cited sources in the category include inworld.ai, speechmatics.com, youtube.com, assemblyai.com, and reddit.com, none of which appear in the ranked brand list. This indicates Google AI Mode is anchoring its citations to third-party commentary and adjacent platforms rather than the core TTS API vendors themselves. OpenAI recorded the sharpest visibility fall, dropping from 25.0% to 0.0% between periods.
Movers & shakers since last refresh
Biggest visibility fallers
-
OpenAI 25% → 0% · rank #2 → #5-25pp
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ElevenLabs 25% → 12% · rank #1 → #1-12pp
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Google Cloud 12% → 0% · rank #4 → #3-12pp
The ranking
| # | Brand | Visibility | Citation | Top engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
elevenlabs.io
|
12% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
ElevenLabs is the only brand with both visibility and citation at 12.5%, giving it a composite score ten times the 1.2% category average, though visibility has halved from 25.0% previously. |
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| 2 |
cartesia.ai
|
12% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Cartesia matches ElevenLabs on visibility at 12.5% but holds a 0.0% citation rate, producing a composite of 8.8 and signalling it is named but not sourced by Google AI Mode. |
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| 3 |
cloud.google.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
Google Cloud records zero visibility yet earns a 12.5% citation rate, the only brand with this inverse pattern, pushing its composite to 3.8 purely on source trustworthiness. |
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| 4 |
deepgram.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Deepgram sits at rank 4 with a composite score of 0.0, holding no visibility or citation share despite being a recognised TTS API provider in the 20-brand set. |
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| 5 |
openai.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
OpenAI fell from rank 2 to rank 5 with a visibility delta of -25.0 percentage points, dropping to 0.0% visibility and 0.0% citation, the steepest decline recorded in this audit period. |
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| 6 |
aws.amazon.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 7 |
microsoft.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 8 |
play.ht
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 9 |
resemble.ai
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 10 |
wellsaidlabs.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 11 |
murf.ai
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 12 |
lovo.ai
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 13 |
hume.ai
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 14 |
speechify.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 15 |
rime.ai
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 16 |
readspeaker.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 17 |
ibm.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 18 |
cereproc.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 19 |
papercup.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 20 |
descript.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Sources AI engines trust in this category
Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on text-to-speech apis, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.
How to read this ranking
Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.
Visibility = being named
A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer.
Citation rate = being trusted
Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence — different from being named.
Top engine differs by brand
The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps.
Rankings move month to month
AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 30 days and refresh this page automatically.
Get your own text-to-speech apis brand audited
The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.
Frequently asked about text-to-speech apis AI visibility
Who leads AI visibility in the Text-to-speech APIs category?
ElevenLabs leads with a composite score of 12.5, the only brand achieving both 12.5% visibility and 12.5% citation simultaneously. Cartesia shares the same visibility score but records zero citation, placing it second at 8.8 composite.
What sources does Google AI Mode cite most for Text-to-speech API research?
The top cited sources include inworld.ai, speechmatics.com, youtube.com, assemblyai.com, and reddit.com. None of these appear in the ranked brand list, indicating Google AI Mode relies on third-party and community content rather than vendor domains.
Which brand has the biggest gap between visibility and citation in this category?
Cartesia shows the largest positive visibility-to-citation gap, appearing in AI responses at 12.5% visibility while receiving 0.0% citations. Google Cloud shows the opposite gap, cited at 12.5% but appearing in zero AI narratives by name.
Which brand has lost the most AI visibility in Text-to-speech APIs recently?
OpenAI recorded the steepest fall, losing 25.0 percentage points of visibility to drop from 25.0% to 0.0%, moving from rank 2 to rank 5 in the process.
How concentrated is AI visibility across the 20 brands in this category?
Visibility is highly concentrated: the category average is just 1.2%, and only two brands, ElevenLabs and Cartesia, register any visibility at all, both at 12.5%. The remaining 18 brands, including OpenAI, Amazon Polly, and Microsoft Azure, record 0.0%.
Does brand size or general recognition guarantee AI visibility in Text-to-speech APIs?
No. OpenAI, Amazon Polly, and Microsoft Azure all score 0.0% on both visibility and citation despite being large, well-known cloud and AI providers. Newer specialist brands ElevenLabs and Cartesia account for all current visibility in the category.