ElevenLabs and IBM Integrate Voice Technology Into Enterprise AI Agents
ElevenLabs and IBM announced a partnership on March 25 to bring premium voice capabilities to IBM watsonx Orchestrate, an agentic AI platform. The integration combines ElevenLabs' text-to-speech and speech-to-text technology with IBM's agent orchestration tools, giving enterprises the ability to build voice-enabled AI agents for customer and employee interactions.
For customer support teams, this matters because voice agents currently suffer from recognizable problems: long wait times, rigid call flows, and robotic-sounding responses. The integration addresses each of these issues.
What the Integration Provides
ElevenLabs brings access to over 10,000 voices and support for 70 languages with regional accents. IBM watsonx Orchestrate provides the infrastructure to build, deploy, and manage these agents across existing business systems.
The combination includes enterprise-grade security features: PCI compliance for payment processing, Zero Retention Mode for HIPAA-compliant data handling, and data residency controls. These protections address the compliance requirements that prevent many organizations from deploying voice AI at scale.
Where This Applies
Government agencies can serve constituents in multiple languages across healthcare, education, and civic services. Banks, insurance companies, healthcare providers, and utilities can extend support to more communities through customer service, sales, and internal operations.
The integration handles high-volume, concurrent interactions across global user bases-a requirement for large enterprises managing customer support across multiple regions and time zones.
The Broader Shift
Voice has become a critical medium for agentic AI workflows. Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs co-founder, said: "AI agents are becoming central to everyday work, and voice is where AI either earns trust or loses it."
Nick Holda, vice president of AI technology partnerships at IBM, framed the integration as part of IBM's approach to giving clients flexibility: "We're bringing a voice to AI agents in the enterprise. As clients increasingly deploy agentic AI that interacts with their customers and employees, they want these experiences to feel intuitive, responsive and accessible."
The partnership positions voice-first AI as the next phase beyond text-based agents. For customer support operations, this means the technical foundation now exists to deploy natural-sounding agents at enterprise scale with the security controls required by regulated industries.
Learn more about AI for Customer Support and Text-To-Speech technology to understand how these tools apply to your organization.
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