KPN, the largest telecommunications operator in the Netherlands, has partnered with ElevenLabs to integrate voice AI into services used daily by millions of Dutch consumers and businesses. This partnership has given rise to Mobiel AI, an assistant aimed at small entrepreneurs, and now extends to customer service, internal tools, and product development.
- KPN partners with ElevenLabs to bring voice AI to Dutch entrepreneurs.
- Mobiel AI helps small businesses stay reachable without losing focus on their work.
- The service transcribes voicemails, summarizes calls, and directs callers with a welcome menu.
- Voice data stays in the Netherlands, and customer data is not used to train AI models.
Being reachable while staying productive
For a tradesperson, hairdresser, or plumber, the phone is part of the job. Every missed call can mean a lost customer, but answering every call forces them to interrupt their current work. According to KPN, 53% of entrepreneurs believe phone availability comes at the expense of employee concentration, while 69% cite customer satisfaction as one of their company’s main challenges.
Thomas Tolsma, SME Commercial Director at KPN, summarizes the challenge: “Most entrepreneurs want to be reachable at all times, but they also want to be productive. Between accessibility and productivity, the balance is delicate.”
What Mobiel AI offers
Mobiel AI is an option added to KPN EEN MKB mobile subscriptions, accessible via the operator’s existing mobile app. Entrepreneurs keep their number and plan. The service includes three functions: voicemail transcription, to read and prioritize missed calls at a glance; a summary and transcription of each call, with follow-up actions automatically identified; and a welcome menu that directs the caller to a colleague or service, as well as a status setting that defines the entrepreneur’s availability hours.
Why KPN chose ElevenLabs
Before selecting a partner, KPN evaluated several voice AI providers. ElevenLabs stood out for speech quality and its conversational AI, two important criteria for Dutch, a language rich in compound words and marked by regional accents. By gathering more Dutch data and performing fine-tuning, meaning adapting the transcription model to specific data, short and sensitive sequences, the two teams increased verification accuracy from about 50% to 90%. According to the companies, this improvement now benefits all Dutch-language deployments on the platform, not just KPN’s.
Clair van Swelm, New Technology Proposition Manager at KPN SME, emphasizes: “At KPN, we truly believe in combining our expertise with that of specialized technology partners. ElevenLabs really stood out for the depth of its mastery of speech and its conversational AI.”
Developed by KPN teams, hosted in the Netherlands
To design the first AI voicemail, the two teams organized a design sprint bringing KPN’s developers and business managers together in one room. Mobiel AI now runs on KPN’s network and in its own data centers. Voice data remains in the Netherlands: ElevenLabs processes speech in real time and returns the results to KPN. Customer data is not used to train AI models and is not shared with third parties.
Martin Drost, SME IT Director at KPN, specifies: “Together, we offer a stable and secure product. KPN’s network is located in our own data centers. All voice data stays in the Netherlands, and ElevenLabs processes the data in real time and returns the information to us.”
Outlook
Mobiel AI is now available for KPN’s business customers, and the two companies are already exploring the next steps for this project. Thomas Tolsma states: “We greatly appreciate ElevenLabs’ entrepreneurial spirit, and together, we can bring useful innovation to the market. I sincerely believe this technology can help entrepreneurs in the Netherlands work more efficiently.”
