Configuring multi-language support for voice AI agents (EAP)

Multi-language support forvoice AI agentsallows an AI agent to handle phone calls in different languages, adapting its accent, vocabulary, and conversational style based on the language and regional variant you configure.


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Voice AI agents are currently in an early
access program (EAP). You can sign up for the EAP here. You must have a
Zendesk voice plan.
Multi-language support for voice AI agents allows an AI agent to handle phone calls in
different languages, adapting its accent, vocabulary, and conversational style based on
the language and regional variant you configure.
This article contains the following topics:

About multi-language support for voice AI agents
Adding supported languages to voice AI agents
Configuring a voice AI agent’s greeting and escalation messages
Routing customers to the right language
Supported languages and locales

Related article:

Adding and managing supported languages for AI
agents



About multi-language support for voice AI agents

Multi-language support for voice AI agents offers the following key features:


Native-sounding accents: Choose specific regional variants (for example,
Mexican Spanish vs. European Spanish).

Automatic language switching: Callers can request to switch languages
mid-conversation.

Flexible language routing: Route callers to the right language based on
phone number, caller information, or customer preference.

Regional vocabulary: The AI uses region-appropriate terms and
expressions.

Fully generative: There’s no need to translate your procedures or
dialogues. The AI agent automatically handles all conversations in the
configured language. You only need to configure the Welcome reply and Escalation
reply for each language.

Customers can request to switch languages at any point during a conversation. The AI
will automatically:

Detect the language request.
Check whether the language has been added and activated.
Switch to the requested language, if supported.

The AI agent can also list all available languages if the customer asks which
languages are supported. Examples of what customers might say:

"Can we switch to French?"
"Ich möchte auf Deutsch sprechen" (I want to speak in German)
"What languages do you support?"




Adding supported languages to voice AI agents

For an AI agent to be able to converse with customers in a given language, you must
perform the following tasks:


Add the language as a supported
language


Activate the language


Optionally, you can also set a language as the AI agent’s
default.



Configuring a voice AI agent’s greeting and escalation messages

After adding a language, you need to configure what the AI agent says when answering
or escalating the call in that language. You do this by editing the following system
replies:

Welcome reply
Escalation reply

For instructions, see Editing a system reply in an AI agent with
agentic AI.
When configuring each system reply, write the AI agent’s message in the language you
want to support. For example, if you want to support Spanish, your Welcome reply
might look like this: "Hola, soy el asistente virtual. ¿En qué puedo ayudarte?"



Routing customers to the right language

When you have multiple languages configured, or multiple phone numbers connected to the same AI agent, you
can:

Automatically route customers to
the appropriate language
Ask customers which language they
prefer



Automatically routing customers to the appropriate language

You can automatically route customers to the appropriate language. You do this by
creating an action that updates the conversation’s
language, and then triggering that action based on one of the following
criteria:


The phone number called


The customer’s phone
number

User data from your
system



Creating an action that updates a conversation’s language

First, create an action that switches the conversation to a specific
language. If you support many languages and want to be able to route calls
to any of them, you need to create a separate action for each language.
To create an action to update conversation language


In the AI agents workspace, select the AI agent you want to work
with.
Click
Content in the sidebar, then select Actions.
Click Create action.
In Name, enter a descriptive name for the action, such as
Set language to German.
In Target, select Conversation.
In Task, select Set.
In Field to update, enter active_language.
In Value, enter the locale ID you created when adding the
language (for example, de-DE or german). If you’re
not sure, you can check the language code by opening the supported
language for editing.

Click Save.






Routing calls based on the phone number called

If your customers call different numbers for different languages (for
example, one number for English support and another for German), you can
route them based on which number they called.
To route calls based on the phone number called



Edit the system reply
called Welcome reply for the AI agent’s default
language. For help working with the dialogue builder, see
Creating conversation flows
in the dialogue builder for AI agents.

At the beginning of the dialogue, add a Conditional block
with the following details:
First field: Parameter

Second field: toNumber



Update the child Parameter block with the following details:
First field: is

Second field: Enter the phone number the customer called.



In the Details panel, click Add action and select the action you created
above.
Under the Parameter block, add a Link to block with the
following details:
First field: Welcome reply
Second field: Select the same language as the action.


Click Publish.






Routing calls based on the customer’s phone number

You can route calls based on the customer’s location, as detected by the
country code in their phone number.
To route calls based on customer phone number



Edit the system reply
called Welcome reply for the AI agent’s default
language. For help working with the dialogue builder, see
Creating conversation flows
in the dialogue builder for AI agents.

At the beginning of the dialogue, add a Conditional block
with the following details:
First field: Parameter

Second field: fromNumber



Update the child Parameter block with the following details:

First field: is

Second field: Enter the country code of the customer’s phone
number (for example, +49).


In the Details panel, click Add action and select the action you created
above.
Under the Parameter block, add a Link to block with the
following details:
First field: Welcome reply
Second field: Select the same language as the action.


Click Publish.






Routing calls based on user data from your system

You can route calls based on user information in Zendesk or your back-office
system that includes language preference.
To route calls based on user data


Use the integration builder to
create an API integration that fetches the user data you want to
route calls based on.

Edit the system reply
called Welcome reply for the AI agent’s default
language. For help working with the dialogue builder, see
Creating conversation flows
in the dialogue builder for AI agents.

At the beginning of the dialogue, add an API integration
block and select the integration you created.
Select the appropriate child Scenario block and, depending on your
desired workflow, do one of the following:
In the Details panel, click Add action and select the
action you
created above.
Add and configure a Conditional block.


Under the Scenario block, or else the Conditional block’s child
Parameter block, add a Link to block with the following
details:
First field: Welcome reply
Second field: Select the same language as the action.


Click Publish.






Asking customers which language they prefer

You can let customers choose their language at the start of the call.
To ask customers which language they prefer



Edit the system reply called
Welcome reply for the AI agent’s default language. For help
working with the dialogue builder, see Creating conversation flows in
the dialogue builder for AI agents.

In the AI agent message block, add information that prompts the
customer to select a language. For example: "For English, say
'English.' Para español, diga 'español.'"
The AI will
automatically detect the language from the customer’s response and
switch accordingly. Alternatively, you can create a generative
procedure that prompts the customer to select a
language.







Supported languages and locales

Voice AI agents support the following languages and regional variants.









Language
Available locales
Status


English
en-US (American)
Available now


Portuguese
pt-BR (Brazilian), pt-PT (European)


Spanish
es-ES (European), es-MX (Mexican)


German
de-DE (German), de-CH (Swiss)


French
fr-FR (Metropolitan), fr-CA (Canadian)


Dutch
nl-NL (Dutch), nl-BE (Belgian)


Italian
it-IT (Italian)


Polish
pl-PL (Polish)


Romanian
ro-RO (Romanian)


Turkish
tr-TR (Turkish)


Japanese
ja-JP (Japanese)
Coming soon


Chinese
zh-CN (Simplified), zh-TW (Traditional), zh-HK (Hong
Kong)


Arabic
ar-001 (Modern Standard), ar-EG (Egyptian), ar-SA
(Saudi)


Russian
ru-RU (Russian)


Vietnamese
vi-VN (Vietnamese)


Finnish
fi-FI (Finnish)


Swedish
sv-SE (Swedish)


Danish
da-DK (Danish)


Norwegian
nb-NO (Bokmål), nn-NO (Nynorsk)


Indonesian
id-ID (Indonesian)


Tagalog
fil-PH (Filipino)


Korean
ko-KR (Korean)


Hindi
hi-IN (Hindi)


Ukrainian
uk-UA (Ukrainian)


Czech
cs-CZ (Czech)


Hungarian
hu-HU (Hungarian)


Bulgarian
bg-BG (Bulgarian)


Greek
el-GR (Greek)


Hebrew
he-IL (Hebrew)


Afrikaans
af-ZA (South African)


Armenian
hy-AM (Armenian)


Azerbaijani
az-AZ (Azerbaijani)


Belarusian
be-BY (Belarusian)


Bosnian
bs-BA (Bosnian)


Catalan
ca-ES (Catalan)


Croatian
hr-HR (Croatian)


Estonian
et-EE (Estonian)


Galician
gl-ES (Galician)


Icelandic
is-IS (Icelandic)


Kannada
kn-IN (Kannada)


Kazakh
kk-KZ (Kazakh)


Latvian
lv-LV (Latvian)


Lithuanian
lt-LT (Lithuanian)


Macedonian
mk-MK (Macedonian)


Malay
ms-MY (Malay)


Marathi
mr-IN (Marathi)


Maori
mi-NZ (Maori)


Nepali
ne-NP (Nepali)


Persian
fa-IR (Iranian)


Serbian
sr-RS (Serbian)


Slovak
sk-SK (Slovak)


Slovenian
sl-SI (Slovenian)


Swahili
sw-KE (Kenyan), sw-TZ (Tanzanian)


Tamil
ta-IN (Indian), ta-LK (Sri Lankan)


Thai
th-TH (Thai)


Urdu
ur-PK (Pakistani), ur-IN (Indian)


Welsh
cy-GB (Welsh)






Note: If you need a different language or locale, contact Zendesk customer support to
request additional language support.



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