TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs Partner to Scale Voice AI Alongside Frontline Customer Care Teams

TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs Partner to Scale Voice AI Alongside Frontline Customer Care Teams

 The partnership brings ElevenAgents to enterprise customer experience, with TELUS Digital
providing the implementation and operations expertise to put it into production

VANCOUVER, BC, June 22, 2026 /CNW/ - TELUS Digital, a global technology service provider specializing in AI-powered digital customer experiences (CX) and future-focused digital transformations, today announced a partnership with ElevenLabs, an AI company that transforms how people and businesses communicate with the world. The partnership makes TELUS Digital a preferred implementation partner for ElevenAgents, ElevenLabs' AI voice agent platform. ElevenAgents handle high-volume, routine interactions and route complex or sensitive ones to human frontline teams, who receive better-qualified work and more capacity for the customers who need them most.

Under the partnership, enterprises can contract with ElevenLabs directly and work with TELUS Digital to deploy and run the voice AI technology. TELUS Digital will lead implementation, integration and governance for clients adopting ElevenAgents, drawing on expertise across the major customer relationship management (CRM), CX and telephony platforms ElevenLabs connects to, including Genesys, Twilio, Amazon Connect, Zendesk and Salesforce, along with the orchestration, monitoring and human capabilities clients need to run voice AI at scale. TELUS Digital's role will continue beyond go-live, with ongoing managed services and operational support to keep voice AI running well in production, and to grow it as client needs evolve.

"Deploying AI agents at enterprise scale is harder than it looks – the technology has to hold up in a live operation with real customers, real complexity, and no margin for a bad experience," said Ashish Uchil, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at ElevenLabs. "TELUS Digital understands that. They bring the operational depth and engineering expertise to take ElevenAgents from a deployment into something customers actually experience. That's exactly the kind of partner we want building with us."

TELUS Digital's expertise in conversational AI for customer service spans voice, generative AI and agentic automation, backed by something few implementation partners can match: it runs customer operations at scale itself, and employs more than 900 AI engineers with a deep understanding of enterprise-grade AI delivery. It applies a forward-deployed engineering model, embedding its engineers within client operations to build and refine solutions close to the real work.

What can voice AI do for enterprises?

Voice AI is a way to handle far more customer conversations than frontline teams can handle on their own, in a customer's own language. AI Agents like ElevenAgents resolve common requests and connect to back-end systems to take action mid-conversation, like updating an account or booking a follow-up. They can also reach customers proactively at the moments that matter, such as onboarding a new account. This extends what a customer care operation can cover, while freeing teams to spend their time where people make the difference.

ElevenAgents produces natural, human-sounding speech across 70+ languages with low latency. AI Agents talk, listen, and take action in real time – resolving issues, triggering workflows, and delivering accurate answers grounded in a company's own data. When a customer switches languages mid-call, the agent follows; when they interrupt or hesitate, the conversation keeps moving. The result is a customer experience that's consistent, on-brand, and available at any scale, without rebuilding from scratch for every market or channel.

"Voice is how people most naturally communicate, and it is fast becoming a primary way they connect with brands and customer care teams," said Will Mayo, Senior Vice President, Commercial, TELUS Digital. "Voice AI can get customers the answers they need in the moment, without wait time or being passed between agents. That frees up our frontline teams to spend their time on the conversations that need them most. ElevenAgents is built for this, and it can deliver that experience to every customer, at scale."

ElevenLabs at work at TELUS Digital and TELUS

TELUS Digital already uses ElevenLabs to train its own contact center agents through its proprietary Fuel iX™ Agent Trainer. The company onboards thousands of new agents each year, and the platform generates lifelike voice and chat simulations so they can rehearse a full range of customer situations – from routine questions to difficult complaints – before taking live calls. After more than 90,000 simulations as of June 2026, the approach has reduced onboarding time by 20%, with early signs of lower agent turnover as better-prepared agents start the role with more confidence.

At TELUS Communications, a world-leading communications technology company, an ElevenLabs voice agent proactively reached newly activated home internet customers in their first 90 days, a proof-of-concept designed and built by TELUS Digital, a business entity of TELUS. The agent and the team each played a clear role:

• The voice agent confirmed service setup, walked customers through their first bill, and answered early onboarding questions before customers needed to reach out.
• Account changes, promotions, service troubleshooting and any request for human support stayed with TELUS' human agents.
• Transparency was built in: the agent identified itself as an AI at the start of every call and before any account information was discussed, and the call ended if a customer declined to continue.

"Our team members are the heart of customer care at TELUS, and they're who customers turn to for the complex and sensitive issues where human judgment and empathy matter most," said Jelena Bajic, Global Vice President, Global Operations Excellence, TELUS Communications. "When customers sign up for home internet, those first moments matter. We wanted to welcome every new customer proactively — before they hit a problem — with personalized onboarding that gets them set up for success. With ElevenLabs, we can deliver that personalized first experience at scale. It frees our team members to do what they do best: handle complex issues and build real relationships. That's where human judgment and empathy create the most value for customers."

TELUS customers who received a welcome call were less than half as likely to cancel within their first 30 days as the average new internet customer, and gave the welcome calls an average score of 8.5 out of 10. Building on these results, TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs will go to market together to bring ElevenAgents into live customer service for enterprise clients across telecommunications, financial services, utilities, retail and other sectors with high-volume customer engagement needs.

To learn how TELUS Digital combines voice, GenAI and agentic automation to empower human agents to deliver high-value CX, visit: telusdigital.com/solutions/ai-customer-care/intelligent-conversational-ai-solutions

For more information on ElevenAgents, visit: https://elevenlabs.io/agents

Join TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs at Customer Contact Week (CCW)

TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs are co-hosting a VIP reception for a select group of technology and AI executives during CCW Las Vegas. Join for an evening of conversation and networking on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm PDT. Seats are limited. Reserve your spot.

Frequently asked questions

1. How do human agents and voice AI work together in customer care?
   
   Voice AI can handle high-volume, routine interactions, while complex or sensitive issues, and any customer who asks for a person, are elevated to human agents. The technology gives teams more capacity for the work where judgment and empathy matter most, and for things they could not get to before at scale, like reaching every new customer proactively during onboarding. The goal is to empower people with AI, so human agents spend their time where they add the most value. 
   
   
2. How can an AI voice agent improve new customer onboarding?
   
   An AI voice agent can reach new customers proactively, right at activation, with consistent guidance on billing, self-serve tools and account setup, answering common questions before they turn into support calls or early cancellations. In a TELUS deployment, customers who received a proactive welcome call were less than half as likely to cancel in their first 30 days as the average new internet customer.
   
   
3. How does ElevenLabs power enterprise conversational AI deployments?
   
   ElevenAgents gives enterprises a single platform to deploy voice and chat agents connected to their existing systems, knowledge base, and workflows. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, with SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance built in. EU Data Residency and Zero Retention modes are available for stricter requirements - making ElevenAgents a fit for regulated industries including financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications. There are currently 4.8 million agents live on the platform, handling 1.3 million conversations every day across enterprises and governments in 80 countries. 
   
   
4. How do you ensure responsible AI in customer-facing voice deployments? 
   
   Responsible AI governance should be designed into a program from the outset, and reviewed before the first customer interaction. In practice, that means clear disclosure that customers are speaking with an AI and can end the conversation at any time, strict limits on what data the AI can access, verifying details against live records rather than assuming them, and a full governance and privacy review before launch.
   
   
5. How will TELUS Digital act as an implementation partner for ElevenLabs deployments?
   
   As an ElevenLabs implementation partner, TELUS Digital handles the end-to-end work of deploying conversational AI agents in a real business environment. This includes: solution architecture, persona and conversation design, systems integration, responsible AI governance and ongoing program management. This can help translate ElevenAgents' capabilities into a production-ready customer experience. TELUS Digital's role continues beyond go-live, with ongoing managed services and operational support to keep voice AI running well in production, and to grow it as client needs evolve.
   
   
6. Why choose TELUS Digital as an ElevenLabs implementation partner?
   
   When looking for the best AI voice agents and conversational AI platforms, enterprises should understand that the technology is only as good as the team that puts it into production. TELUS Digital pairs enterprise implementation expertise with something few partners have: operator-level experience. As a business entity of TELUS Communications, our solutions are proven inside one of North America's most demanding telecom operations before they reach any other client. Our CX transformation services cover the full program, from solution architecture and governance through deployment and ongoing management.

About TELUS Digital
TELUS Digital crafts unique and enduring experiences for customers and employees, and creates future-focused digital transformations that deliver value for our clients. We are the brand behind the brands. Our global team members are both passionate ambassadors of our clients' products and services, and technology experts resolute in our pursuit to elevate their end customer journeys, solve business challenges, mitigate risks, and drive continuous innovation. Our portfolio of end-to-end, integrated capabilities include customer experience management, digital solutions, such as cloud solutions, AI-fueled automation, front-end digital design and consulting services, AI & data solutions, including computer vision, and trust, safety and security services. Fuel iX^TM is TELUS Digital's proprietary platform and suite of products for clients to manage, monitor, and maintain generative AI across the enterprise, offering both standardized AI capabilities and custom application development tools for creating tailored enterprise solutions.

Powered by purpose, TELUS Digital leverages technology, human ingenuity and compassion to serve customers and create inclusive, thriving communities in the regions where we operate around the world. Guided by our Humanity-in-the-Loop principles, we take a responsible approach to the transformational technologies we develop and deploy by proactively considering and addressing the broader impacts of our work. Learn more at: telusdigital.com

About ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs is an AI company that transforms how people and businesses communicate with the world. We launched in January 2023 with the first human-like AI voice model. Today, we serve millions of users and thousands of businesses across three main platforms. ElevenAgents enables businesses to deliver seamless and intelligent customer experiences, with the integrations, testing, monitoring, and reliability necessary to deploy voice and chat agents at scale. ElevenCreative empowers creators and marketers to generate and edit speech, music, image, and video across 70+ languages. ElevenAPI gives developers access to our leading AI audio foundational models.

Contacts:
TELUS Digital Media Relations
Jackie Paduano
media.relations@telusdigital.com

TELUS Investor Relations
Olena Lobach
ir@telus.com

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