Memorandum of Understanding Between Greece and AI Company ElevenLabs for Digital Government

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski at the Maximos Mansion and subsequently attended the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Greek Government and the company, in the presence on behalf of the government, of the Minister of Digital Governance Dimitris Papastergiou and the Minister of Tourism Olga Kefalogianni. ElevenLabs is among the global pioneers in the development of artificial intelligence in the field of voice technology. (Cover photo: https://www.ertnews.gr/)

During the meeting, they discussed the main areas of cooperation, with a focus on the use of ElevenLabs technology on the Gov.gr portal, in tourism, and in the preservation of Greece’s local dialects and idioms.

As for Gov.gr, the goal is to enhance digitized services with voice-activated features, particularly those services that are widely used by citizens, thereby facilitating equal access and service for all users. In a second phase, the possibility of a voice interface will be explored, which will allow users to give voice commands or ask questions verbally.
As for tourism, ElevenLabs’ technology is expected to be integrated into the VisitGreece portal, to help provide information and guided tours to visitors at museums and archaeological sites, and to help promote lesser-known destinations.
With regard to preserving our country’s linguistic diversity, a pilot digital library of local accents and dialects will be created in collaboration with the Athena Research Center and the Institute of Language and Speech Processing. In the first phase, the natural speech of speakers of distinct dialects will be recorded to serve as the basis for creating a digital voice.

During the discussion, views were also exchanged on the potential use of voice models in civil protection, an area in which Greece already has the tried-and-tested early warning system “112”, as well as on how to better connect ancient Greek philosophy with the modern public.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis emphasized, “We are implementing one of the most ambitious digital transformation strategies of any European country. We provide more than 2,200 digital services to our citizens. But of course, we used to think of Gov.gr as a screen interface where people would type in whatever their requests were, but of course AI is opening up completely new opportunities to interact with the state in a completely conversational, multilingual, voice-enabled and at the end of the day much more intuitive manner.”

Prime Minister added, “I’m also very happy that we’re extending this partnership beyond government services. In tourism, and we’ve discussed this frequently with the Minister, these technologies can vastly help people experience what Greece has to offer in entirely new ways and making our history, our culture, our destinations available in every language.” “And I’m also fascinated by the third aspect of this partnership, which relates to the preservation of our very rich linguistic heritage of various dialects that are still spoken in Greece. Unfortunately, some of them we risk losing, and the ability of AI to capture this linguistic wealth and to keep it alive for future generations is truly fascinating.”

Mati Staniszewski highlighted Greece’s role within the ElevenLabs ecosystem, noting “I’m very excited about the MOU and, as you said, the three pillars of bringing it to the digital services across 2,200 parts of the government and across amplifying tourism and preserving the languages. Greece has been a big part of ElevenLabs from the beginning. We have a Greek leading our research engineering, we have a Greek leading our deployment efforts, and some of the earliest enterprise customers were from Greece. So even more excited for what Greece is doing and having a pleasure to be a part of the voice layer of that ambition.”

According to Minister Papastergiou, the partnership will focus on digital voice services for the public sector, “Pharos” — Greece’s AI Factory for culture, language, health, and environmental sustainability — and the digital mAiGreece platform, developed by the Ministries of Tourism and Digital Governance to support visitors to the country.

(Source: https://www.primeminister.gr/en/2026/05/28/38599, https://www.ertnews.gr/ )

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ remarks during his conversation with the Chief Executive Officer of ElevenLabs Mati Staniszewski, in the context of the “Panathēnea 2026” festival

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis participated in a conversation with the Chief Executive Officer of ElevenLabs Mati Staniszewski, in the context of the “Panathēnea 2026” festival, held at the Zappeion Megaron. In his opening remarks, referring to the memorandum of understanding signed between the Greek government and Eleven Labs, the Prime Minister noted, among others:

“What we did today was to expand the partnerships that we established with leading AI companies to improve public services. The idea is very simple. We take one of the leading, if not the leading, voice AI chatbot companies in the world, and we try to integrate their technologies in delivering public services through our Gov.gr site. So instead of typing your request, you just talk to the site, and hopefully you will get meaningful responses and engage in constructive conversations”.

When asked about his personal ambition to transform Greece from a laggard into a leader in the fields of technology and artificial intelligence, Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated, among others, “We made the digital transformation of the state our number one priority, and I think we have been able to leapfrog many European countries in terms of delivering a very convenient and user-friendly interface with the government through our Gov.gr site”… “We have a strategy. We have a Ministry in charge of Artificial Intelligence. We have a data policy, which is absolutely critical when it comes to leveraging open data. We have an open data policy. You can go on our Gov.gr site and look at the number of open data datasets that we have made available only over the past two weeks. This is an incredible treasure for many of the companies that may be joining us today who are looking for well-curated, high-quality data to develop their own models”.

When asked about Greece’s priorities in the field of artificial intelligence, the Prime Minister noted, among others, “I would highlight three areas. First of all, be a leading country in terms of using AI smartly and responsibly to provide public services, develop a sovereign AI infrastructure that leverages the interest to invest in the country, whether it means our new supercomputer, which is in the process of being built in Lavrio, “Daedalus”, or even encouraging big data gigafactories such as a project which is launched by the Public Power Corporation in Western Macedonia. So, we want to be part of the sovereign European infrastructure space, and I think we have enough investment opportunities and a well-thought-out strategy to generate interest for these types of investments.”

Read the full article here: https://www.primeminister.gr/en/2026/05/28/38608