ElevenLabs builds voice agents — that is what it calls the AI voices that answer the phone. Connected to Zirko, your agent creates inquiries and emergencies and follows your rules. What Zirko does in all this, and what never, is explained in Connecting an AI phone service.
Is your business in Germany, Austria or Switzerland? Then fonio is all in one: the phone number is included in the plan, and calls are processed in the EU with servers in Germany. ElevenLabs is the way for every other country — and for anyone who already works with it.
First, in Zirko: under Settings → Company → AI phone service, Connect a phone service is switched on and you have created a key for ElevenLabs. Below, under How to set up your phone service, choose ElevenLabs — every value is there, ready to copy. This article explains what the steps mean.
The “AI phone service” tab in Settings: “Connect a phone service” is on, a key shows only its last characters, and below it “How to set up your phone service” with ElevenLabs selected — No screenshot is available in this language yet.
What you need at ElevenLabs
An ElevenLabs account, at least on the Starter plan: ElevenLabs requires it for business use, and the free plan does not allow it. Every plan includes a limited number of minutes, and ElevenLabs bills the AI behind it, the language model, separately.
A phone number — ElevenLabs does not sell them. This is the part that takes the most work, and there are two ways:
- Twilio, a provider of phone numbers over the internet: you open an account there, take a number and import it into ElevenLabs. You pay for the number with Twilio.
- SIP trunk, an internet line for phone systems: with it you connect your phone system to ElevenLabs and keep your number, without moving it. Whether your system can do this, your phone provider or whoever set it up for you will know.
(Information from ElevenLabs, checked on 12 October 2026.)
The steps
At ElevenLabs, the phone assistant is called an agent, and the menus are in English — the words below are written the way you see them there.
- Create four tools (Agent → Tools → Add tool, each as a Webhook): Get rules, Recognize caller, Create inquiry and Report emergency. A webhook is a request the agent uses to check with Zirko during the call. In each one, enter the key as the secret header
Authorization—Bearer, a space, then the key. A header is a field that travels along with every request. The caller's number is not typed in by the AI: that field holds the variablesystem__caller_id, which ElevenLabs fills in by itself on every call. - Instructions (System prompt): Zirko provides a section to paste in. It is in English because language models follow it most reliably — your agent still speaks the caller's language.
- Greeting (First message): the sentence from your rules, saying that an AI is speaking and the call is being recorded. Add the note ElevenLabs requires: that the call may go to ElevenLabs and its AI providers.
- Turn off audio saving, shorten retention (Agent → Advanced): by default, ElevenLabs saves the audio of every call. Zirko does not need it — set Audio saving under Privacy Settings to Off, and only the transcript remains. By default, ElevenLabs keeps transcripts and recordings for two years; enter fewer days under Data Retention, such as 30.
- Have emergencies put through to you (optional): with the Transfer to Human tool — it passes the call on to a person — to your emergency number, in international format with + and the country code. This only works with a number through Twilio or a SIP trunk.
- Test: call your number and ask for the opening hours. If the key in Zirko then shows Last used: just now, the connection works.
Fill in your Rules for calls before the test — without opening hours and an emergency rule, the agent has nothing to say.
Do not set up a lookup at the start of the call. If Zirko happened to be unreachable, ElevenLabs could not take the call at all — not even an emergency. The tools fetch the rules during the call; if one fails, the agent keeps talking without it.
Instead of the tools: as an MCP server
Below the sheet you can expand As an MCP server instead of the tools. MCP is the same kind of connection as with AI assistants. It is easier to set up, but without caller recognition and not in ElevenLabs' zero retention mode — the mode in which ElevenLabs keeps no call data. Your workspace, meaning your ElevenLabs account, has to accept ElevenLabs' MCP terms once.
Where the calls are stored
By default, ElevenLabs processes calls in the US; in the EU only on the Enterprise plan. You sign the data processing agreement with ElevenLabs yourself. If you need processing in the EU, choose it there — Zirko cannot set this for you.