# Callab AI

> Callab AI builds AI voice agents that plug directly into the legacy, on-premises phone systems most large call centers still run on. Instead of forcing a cloud migration, its carrier-grade telephony stack connects to hardware like Avaya, Cisco UCM, and Mitel over SIP trunks and automates a large share of inbound calls within about a week. Founded by Tunisian engineers Haithem Kchaou and Chehir Dhaouadi and part of Y Combinator's Spring 2026 batch, the company handles calls in Arabic and its dialects plus several other languages, and serves customers across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

- **Founded:** 2020
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founders:** Haithem Kchaou (Co-founder & CEO), Chehir Dhaouadi (Co-founder & CTO)
- **Team size:** 7
- **Products:** Callab AI Voice Agents, Carrier-grade on-prem telephony stack, Multilingual voice engine, Elm (prior project)
- **Notable:** Accepted into Y Combinator's Spring 2026 (P26) batch; reported as the first Tunisian-rooted company in YC., Built a proprietary carrier-grade telephony stack that integrates natively with legacy PBX systems (Avaya, Cisco UCM, Mitel)., Deployments across three continents, including customers such as Dunkin.

## Products & services

- **Callab AI Voice Agents** — AI voice agents that connect natively to on-premises telephony (Avaya, Cisco UCM, Mitel) via SIP trunk integration, automating up to 70% of inbound call volume for tasks like call routing, appointment scheduling, order status, and customer support - with human handoff that preserves context.
- **Carrier-grade on-prem telephony stack** — A proprietary telephony layer that lets large organizations deploy voice AI on existing legacy PBX infrastructure without cloud migration, typically live in about one week.
- **Multilingual voice engine** — Handles Arabic and its regional dialects alongside English, Spanish, French, German, and Mandarin, resolving requests end-to-end or transferring to a human agent.
- **Elm (prior project)** — An AI-powered library built for Tunisia's Ministry of Higher Education, part of a national initiative giving 300,000+ students free LLM access; informed the team's view of AI gaps in non-Western markets.

## Achievements

- Accepted into Y Combinator's Spring 2026 (P26) batch; reported as the first Tunisian-rooted company in YC.
- Built a proprietary carrier-grade telephony stack that integrates natively with legacy PBX systems (Avaya, Cisco UCM, Mitel).
- Deployments across three continents, including customers such as Dunkin.
- Founders previously deployed local LLM instances in a government datacenter to give 300,000+ students free AI access.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Operating out of San Francisco as an active YC Spring 2026 company; hiring for Head of SDR and Growth Marketer roles.
- **2026** — Joined Y Combinator's P26 batch and expanded enterprise voice-agent deployments across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

## Links

- Website: https://callab.ai
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/callabai
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/haithemkchaou

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/callab-ai-yc-p26
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-31