FirstWork chose Plivo after six months of voice AI testing

FirstWork, a Y Combinator-backed startup automating frontline hiring, tested every major voice AI platform for five to six months before choosing Plivo. The company says the switch helped it scale to 20,000 calls per minute across three languages with uptime above 99.99%.

Why it matters: - FirstWork’s hiring platform depends on voice calls to move candidates quickly through frontline recruiting. - In this use case, a dropped call means a lost candidate, so infrastructure reliability matters more than demo performance. - The result shows that voice AI systems have to survive real-world load, not just sound good in controlled tests.

What happened: - FirstWork spent five to six months testing major voice AI platforms before settling on Plivo. - The startup started at 100 calls per minute and later scaled to 20,000 calls per minute. - FirstWork now handles calls in English, Hindi and Spanish. - The company reports no infrastructure failures and uptime above 99.99%.

The details: - FirstWork built its platform to automate frontline hiring with AI voice agents that can move candidates through the process in real time. - The evaluation focused on production reliability, call handling under heavy volume, and performance across multiple languages. - Mohit, FirstWork’s global head of business development, said most platforms failed when real volume arrived. - Plivo runs its own global voice network, which it says has operated since 2012. - Plivo says its stack includes the conversational AI layer, speech models, noise cancellation, turn detection and telephony network in one platform. - Plivo says its network has operated across 190 countries for more than a decade. - Plivo says customers including Uber, Meta and Trip.com use its network. - The full FirstWork case study is available here.

Between the lines: - The story underscores a common production problem in voice AI: a strong model can still fail if the surrounding infrastructure is weak. - FirstWork’s result suggests buyers are increasingly evaluating voice AI platforms as complete systems, not isolated model demos. - Plivo’s pitch centers on owning the full stack, which reduces the chance of failure from stitched-together components.

What's next: - FirstWork will likely keep relying on high-volume voice automation as it scales frontline hiring. - The broader market will keep testing whether voice AI vendors can maintain quality and uptime under real operational load. - Plivo is using the FirstWork deployment as proof that its platform can support enterprise-scale voice traffic."}