ElevenLabs equips ElevenAgents with Procedures to guide its agents

ElevenLabs updates ElevenAgents with Procedures, integrating structured or freeform playbooks to guide voice agents through specific task steps.

ElevenLabs is expanding ElevenAgents, its voice agent platform, with Procedures, playbooks that outline the steps for a specific task. The principle mirrors the standard operating procedures (SOPs) followed by an employee. Each Procedure links a trigger, which defines the relevant situations, and content, which describes the actions to be taken. A request like "can I get a refund?" loads the corresponding steps: ask for the order number, check eligibility, process the refund if the case is validated.

Two formats coexist. Structured Procedures execute a fixed sequence of steps, identical with each call, designed for tasks where consistency is paramount, such as identity verification or payment processing. Freeform Procedures, less prescriptive, allow the agent to interpret instructions and adjust to the exchange, for technical troubleshooting or billing questions. Since instructions are only loaded at the time of triggering, extracting them from the general system prompt can speed up the agent.

Existing SOPs can be imported in doc, PDF, or txt format, and ElevenAgents drafts a Procedure for validation or editing. The content of a Procedure is capped at 50,000 characters, one format does not convert to the other, and only Freeform Procedures can refer to the knowledge base or other Procedures. The feature is in Alpha, and its schema may still evolve.