Elevenlabs announced two new speech‑to‑speech models on October 20, 2026. They are called Eleven Realtime v1 Max and v1 Mini. The Max version scored 98.8 % on the Big Bench Audio benchmark and responds in about 0.57 seconds. The Mini version is smaller, costs less, and can detect when a speaker has finished or is only saying “mm‑hmm.” Both models can be accessed through the ElevenAgents platform or an OpenAI‑compatible Realtime API.
How the models differ
v1 Max is aimed at more demanding tasks such as customer‑support bots that need high accuracy and low latency. v1 Mini is built for natural, everyday conversations where cost is a bigger concern. Pricing is charged per minute of audio plus token usage, with Max priced higher than Mini, according to Elevenlabs’ pricing page.
Why it matters
For developers building voice assistants, the Max model offers near‑real‑time replies with very high accuracy, which can improve user experience in support scenarios. The cheaper Mini model lets smaller businesses add live speech interaction without large compute bills. Independent benchmarks beyond Elevenlabs’ own claims have not yet been published.
