The UK government has signed a memorandum of understanding with ElevenLabs, the $11bn voice AI company, covering three areas: improving public service accessibility for people with visual impairments, low literacy, and linguistically diverse communities; extending an existing AI safety research partnership with the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) on voice detection and conversational agents; and talent development in voice and audio AI. This is the fifth such MoU the UK has signed with a frontier AI company, following deals with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Nvidia. The agreements are non-binding and carry no procurement commitments. Notably, a prior investigation found the OpenAI MoU produced no formal government trials eight months after signing, raising questions about whether this deal will translate into real outcomes.
