ElevenLabs Signs UK Government Deal to Bring Voice AI to Public Services
ElevenLabs has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to explore how voice AI can improve access to government services, deepen AI security research, and grow AI talent across the country.
The agreement makes ElevenLabs voice AI a formal part of the UK’s public sector strategy, covering three key areas. The company will work with DSIT to make government information more accessible to blind and visually impaired citizens, people with low literacy or learning differences, elderly users, and linguistically diverse communities including Welsh speakers. It will also extend its existing research with the UK AI Security Institute, studying how people perceive and interact with AI-generated voices, including whether they can identify when they are speaking to an AI. A third strand focuses on talent, with both parties set to collaborate on attracting and developing voice and audio AI expertise in the UK.
UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said voice AI could make a real difference in how people access public services, whether helping someone with a visual impairment listen to information or making services easier to use for elderly citizens.
Alongside the government deal, ElevenLabs is significantly scaling its UK presence. The company is moving into a new London headquarters triple the size of its current office and plans to double its UK headcount to 200 people this year across research, engineering, sales and other teams. The expansion also comes with a key leadership appointment: Alex Holt, one of ElevenLabs’ first ten employees, has been named Field CTO and will lead core engineering teams and work directly with the company’s largest enterprise customers globally.
ElevenLabs voice AI public services work is already producing real results for UK businesses. Revolut uses its voice agents to serve 4 million customers in 30 languages across the UK and Europe, Deliveroo uses them to streamline rider onboarding, and Trainline deploys them to handle refunds.
The company’s public sector track record goes beyond the UK. In the Czech Republic, ElevenLabs voice agents handle over 5,000 calls per day about employment benefits that were previously going unanswered. In Ukraine, the technology powers voice access to public services on the Diia app, and in Greece, it is being used to preserve endangered dialects spoken by only a few hundred elderly citizens.
In healthcare, ElevenLabs already partners with UK organisations including the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Scott-Morgan Foundation to provide free AI voice technology to people living with conditions that cause permanent voice loss, supporting over 70 languages including Welsh.
The full announcement is available on the ElevenLabs blog.
