Orbio AI unifies communications to scale AI HR agents globally

Challenge

Orbio AI wanted to use conversational AI to automate recruitment and other HR processes for organizations with large frontline workforces, while delivering seamless interactions for candidates and hiring teams. To deliver those experiences globally, it needed communications infrastructure that could scale across channels and markets.

Solution

The company built its platform on Twilio Voice, Twilio Programmable Messaging, and other Twilio products, enabling its AI agents to deliver natural voice and messaging experiences while providing recruiters with a unified platform for managing conversations globally.

Within its first year, HR technology startup Orbio AI has grown to support more than 100 enterprise customers across Asia, North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. Its conversational AI platform uses specialized AI agents to automate complex HR processes while creating more natural experiences for candidates, employees, hiring managers, and recruiters through voice and messaging.

For co-founder Sergi Bastardas, Orbio’s growth reflects a fundamental shift in what conversational AI can do. Advances in large language models now enable AI agents to understand the complexities of many HR interactions, making it possible to automate routine conversations that previously relied on recruiters.

Orbio’s initial focus has been helping organizations transform frontline recruitment while laying the foundations for other AI-powered HR workflows.

Taking that capability to global markets, however, required more than advanced AI. Orbio needed enterprise-grade communications that could seamlessly connect voice and messaging, adapt to local market requirements, and scale internationally as the business grew.

Orbio AI selected Twilio as the communications foundation for its agentic HR platform because it combined the capabilities it needed to scale conversational experiences with the developer experience that Orbio’s engineering team already trusted. Twilio’s native messaging integrations, global coverage, and responsive support further reinforced that decision.

Built on Twilio Voice and Twilio Programmable Messaging — including Twilio’s SMS, RCS, and WhatsApp APIs — Orbio’s platform allows hiring managers, recruiters, candidates, and employees to engage more efficiently and naturally.

For example, Orbio’s hiring agent can screen candidates, answer questions about a role, schedule interviews, and keep candidates informed throughout the recruitment process. Recruiters can monitor conversations and step in when needed. The omnichannel platform adapts automatically, giving candidates the flexibility to continue conversations via WhatsApp, SMS, or voice calls, while helping employers deliver a consistent hiring experience. 

The platform helps candidates move through the hiring process more quickly, often being contacted within one minute of applying. Candidates can engage whenever it suits them, with 40–50 per cent of interviews now taking place outside traditional business hours.

Twilio also helps streamline recruitment workflows. Recruiters manage the hiring process through Orbio’s web-based platform, which unifies communications and AI-powered recruitment workflows. With Twilio Voice SDK integrated into the platform, they can call candidates directly from the browser, with conversations automatically transcribed and captured. 

Instead of switching between communications apps and HR systems, recruiters can manage every interaction from a single interface while maintaining a complete conversation history.

Twilio also helps streamline collaboration with hiring managers. Melé describes one example in which a manager sent a WhatsApp voice note approving one candidate and declining another. Orbio's AI agent interpreted the message, updated the hiring workflow, and automatically notified recruiters and candidates — eliminating manual updates and allowing managers to communicate using the tools they already use every day.

Combined with faster candidate engagement, these streamlined recruitment workflows have helped Orbio’s customers reduce time-to-hire by up to 85 per cent.

As Orbio AI expanded from its home base in Spain across Europe, the US, Latin America, and Asia Pacific, it needed communications infrastructure that could scale internationally while delivering localized experiences for candidates and hiring teams.

Twilio Phone Numbers and Regulatory Bundles allow Orbio to provision local phone numbers and understand country-specific regulatory requirements. This makes it easy for the company to onboard customers quickly in new markets. Twilio’s communications platform also enabled Orbio to provide localized voice and messaging experiences.

Beyond the platform, Twilio’s account and engineering teams helped Orbio navigate regulatory approvals, WhatsApp account verification, and country-specific deployment issues to accelerate customer onboarding in new markets.

Localized experiences are more than a convenience — they directly influence engagement and response rates. Candidates are more likely to answer calls from local numbers, while communication preferences vary widely between markets. In the US, SMS and RCS often deliver the best results, while WhatsApp is preferred in many European markets.

With customers including Adecco, RBE (Burger King, Tim Hortons), Yum! Brands (KFC), Atento and Prime Communications, Orbio’s hiring agent, has already supported more than 20 million conversations. The company has also engaged more than 5 million candidates across voice, WhatsApp, and SMS across more than 30 countries.

Orbio’s success in frontline recruitment has created a foundation for broader innovation. Rather than building and maintaining communications infrastructure, its development teams can focus on advancing conversational AI and helping organizations automate increasingly complex HR processes. Using Twilio’s APIs, the company can continue to scale and introduce new AI-powered experiences without rebuilding communications for every market, channel, or use case.

“Hiring was just the first step,” says Bastardas. Orbio has already expanded its platform with AI agents for onboarding and employee engagement, with additional HR workflows to follow. Together, the suite of agents will create more natural voice and messaging experiences throughout the employee lifecycle. Because Orbio's agents manage the HR cycle end to end, insight from every interaction feeds back into the agents' context. The effect compounds, improving hiring and operations over time.

As Orbio expands its platform, Twilio continues to provide the communications foundation that enables the company to innovate at speed. Orbio AI is extending its solutions to recruiters, hiring managers, employees, and candidates in new ways and new markets.