Indian e-commerce giant Meesho automates 60,000 daily calls with AI voice.

In a significant move to enhance customer experience through artificial intelligence, Indian e-commerce giant Meesho is leveraging technology from AI voice firm ElevenLabs to automate and manage over 60,000 customer support calls daily. This collaboration introduces a sophisticated AI-powered voice agent capable of real-time, multilingual interactions, initially supporting both Hindi and English. The deployment addresses a critical need for a scalable and intuitive voice interface, particularly as 80% of Meesho's user base resides in tier 2 and 3 cities across India, where diverse linguistic needs and varying levels of digital literacy are common.[1][2] This initiative represents one of the largest-scale adoptions of generative AI voice technology in the Indian e-commerce sector, signaling a major shift toward automated, yet personalized, customer relationship management.

The core challenge for a platform as expansive as Meesho, which boasts over 160 million customers, is managing the immense volume of post-purchase inquiries related to order tracking, payments, returns, and other logistical issues.[3] Traditional automated systems often fail to navigate the nuances of local dialects and conversational styles, leading to customer frustration.[3] Recognizing this, Meesho sought a solution that could provide natural, human-like conversations to build trust and offer efficient support. The AI voice bot is engineered to function effectively even on basic smartphones and in noisy environments, a crucial consideration for its target demographic.[1] By successfully handling interruptions and seamlessly switching between languages, the system aims to make interactions feel more relatable and less robotic.[4] The goal is not merely to answer queries but to create a support experience that feels both personal and reliable.

At the heart of this transformation is ElevenLabs' advanced text-to-speech (TTS) technology, which forms the foundation of the AI voice agent.[2] The system combines several cutting-edge technologies, including natural language processing (NLP), automatic speech recognition (ASR), and large language models (LLMs), to comprehend and respond to customer queries accurately and contextually.[4][1] This hybrid approach allows the voicebot to understand local language nuances and dialects, a common stumbling block for generic AI models.[3] "Our goal was to create a voice experience that truly feels human, and ElevenLabs helped us achieve that," stated Siddharth Gupta, a general manager at Meesho.[2] The clarity, warmth, and appropriate tone of the AI-generated voice are considered key factors in establishing trust with users on a massive scale.[2] This focus on high-quality, natural-sounding speech is central to the project's strategy for improving accessibility and engagement.[2][5]

The operational and financial implications of this AI deployment are substantial. The voice bot now autonomously handles a significant portion of daily customer interactions, achieving an impressive 95% resolution rate, which dramatically reduces the need for human intervention for routine queries.[4][1] This has led to a 50% reduction in the average handling time per call and has slashed the cost per call by 75% compared to calls handled by human agents.[4][6] Consequently, customer satisfaction scores for automated calls have seen a 10% improvement.[3][1] By automating these interactions, Meesho's human customer service agents are freed up to concentrate on more complex and nuanced issues that require a human touch, thereby optimizing overall support efficiency.[1] Meesho has emphasized that this move is not intended to replace human agents but to augment their capabilities, with plans to upskill the team to handle more intricate operations.[4][7]

This partnership between Meesho and ElevenLabs marks a pivotal moment for the AI and e-commerce industries in India. It demonstrates the practical application of generative AI to solve real-world business challenges at an immense scale. For ElevenLabs, a US-based unicorn, this collaboration solidifies India as a strategic growth market, where its multilingual capabilities are a natural fit for the diverse linguistic landscape.[5][8] The success of this initiative is expected to set a new industry standard for customer service, pushing other companies to adopt similar technologies to remain competitive. As part of its future roadmap, Meesho plans to expand the voice bot's capabilities to include six additional regional languages and to introduce emotion recognition features for more empathetic interactions.[4][1] This forward-looking strategy highlights a broader trend toward hyper-personalized, AI-driven customer engagement, positioning both Meesho and ElevenLabs at the forefront of this technological revolution.[1]