Voice AI firm ElevenLabs opens Amsterdam office

ElevenLabs, a company that builds voice AI, officially launched in the Netherlands on Thursday 1 October and opened an office in Amsterdam.

Its Dutch clients already include some of the biggest names in telecoms, food delivery and healthcare.

Goswijn Thijssen will run the Amsterdam office.

The company says it will triple its Dutch team this year, with jobs in research, engineering, sales and other areas.

“Amsterdam is one of the most multilingual cities on earth, and a natural home for voice AI,” said cofounder and CEO Mati Staniszewski.

He said demand from Dutch customers in telecoms, healthcare and media was already strong.

Teaching the model Dutch postcodes

KPN, the country’s largest telecom company, uses ElevenLabs voice agents for customer support.

At first the transcription model had trouble with Dutch postcodes and dates of birth.

Once it had been trained on more Dutch voice data, it recognised postcodes correctly 82% of the time, up from 64%.

KPN’s verification agent now handles around 60,000 calls a week with a 62% success rate.

KPN has also used the same system to set up an internal IT help desk and a call-routing service.

Other Dutch clients include Just Eat Takeaway, which uses voice agents with customers, restaurants and couriers, and the online pharmacy Redcare Pharmacy.

The list also includes mental healthcare provider Medendo, the radio and TV company Talpa, and Creative Fabrica, a creative platform that started in Amsterdam.

Free access for people with voice loss

Speech Assistant is an app developed in the Netherlands for people whose voices have changed or who have lost them.

It is installed on more than 100,000 devices in over 150 countries, and through a partnership with ElevenLabs it gives people with permanent voice loss free access to the technology.

Thijssen said the platform currently offers 100 Dutch voices and that customers have already generated more than 200 million audio clips.

With ElevenLabs set to triple its Dutch team this year, anyone eyeing a role in Amsterdam tech may want to know where English-speaking jobs turn up in the city.

Source: elevenlabs.io