Transforming Ukraine's employment services with AI voice agents

Earlier this year, ElevenLabs signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation to help build an agentic approach to government: a state where AI agents work on citizens' behalf across ministries. Since then, ElevenLabs Forward Deployed Engineers have worked side by side with Ukrainian teams across health, education, and the economy, from Mriia's personalized AI tutors to the voice layer behind Diia.AI, Ukraine's public-service agent app.

One of those deployments now in production is a voice agent built on ElevenAgents that Ukraine's Ministry of Economy has rolled out on the State Employment Service contact center. It answers calls directly, in natural Ukrainian, around the clock, and hands off to a human operator when needed.

In its first 80 days, the agent handled 2,698 calls, around 25% of total volume, cut the average time to an answer from 30 - 40 seconds to 18, and kept the line open through air raid alerts.

A more responsive state, one call at a time

For most people, a government hotline is where their relationship with the state becomes real. It is also where that relationship can break down in rigid menus, long waits, and calls that go unanswered. Ukraine's State Employment Service set out to change that.

With a voice agent now answering the line in natural Ukrainian, citizens avoid long waits, get answers even outside working hours, and are routed to the right help more directly. The agent puts caller experience first, giving clear information and handing off to a human operator when it makes sense to do so.

The voice agent is part of Obrii, a digital labor market ecosystem built by the Ministry of Economy. Where public services have traditionally waited for citizens to ask, Obrii is designed around proactive support: helping people find jobs, access training, and develop new skills at every stage of their careers.

Our goal is to build public services that can scale alongside people's needs, with AI helping us deliver faster, more accessible, and more efficient services. The pilot with ElevenLabs on the State Employment Service's contact center has already shown that this approach works, and we see strong potential to expand it across other government services.

- Oleksandr Tsybort, Deputy Minister of Economy

What it takes to do this in Ukraine

Bringing a voice agent to a national contact center in wartime meant solving problems most deployments never face.

Staying available under air raid alerts. During alerts, operators move to shelters and human-staffed lines fall silent. The agent recognizes these moments and takes 100% of traffic until operators return. Before every transfer, the agent checks that an operator is actually available; across the pilot, not a single caller was handed off to an unavailable line. Each escalation arrives with an AI-generated summary, so operators spend less time asking the same questions.

Speaking natural Ukrainian over the phone. Delivering clear, natural speech in Ukrainian is hard, and the agent also has to understand a wide mix of accents and speaking styles through compressed phone audio. ElevenAgents brings the same in-language voice experience ElevenLabs has built across dozens of languages and dialects to natural Ukrainian, so the agent understands intent rather than just keywords and responds in a voice callers trust. 

Handling sensitive data with care. By design, the agent has no access to citizens' case files and won't read out sensitive information like payment statuses or application details. Built on a platform that meets public-sector compliance standards, including SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR, the agent expands access while keeping data secure.

Impact and results

During working hours, the agent resolves routine questions on its own and cleanly escalates calls that require an operator to review case files. Outside them, it answers calls that previously went unanswered entirely: more than 20% of total volume.

Results

As the State Employment Service moves to a proactive model, call volume is set to rise toward 80,000 calls a month, far more than can be covered with new hires alone. The agent absorbs part of that load, helping the team keep pace without sacrificing quality.

The State Employment Service's contact center is evolving from an information and consultation line into a remote service delivery center. The AI assistant from ElevenLabs lets us scale that service without compromising on quality. For citizens, the results are faster answers, shorter waits on the line, and more targeted resolution of their questions.

Yuliia Zhovtiak, Director of the State Employment Service of Ukraine