AI interviews in Zulu.
Updated 6 November 2026
AI Interview Agents runs spoken first-round interviews in Zulu. The AI interviewer, Themba, greets the candidate, asks questions and follows up on each answer in Zulu, in real time, in the candidate's browser with no app to install. The transcript is kept in Zulu, and a person on your team reads the scored report and decides.
This page lists the voice for Zulu, quotes two lines the interviewer says in Zulu, and says what language the report is in and what stays in English.
Which platform handles voice interviews in Zulu with real-time follow-ups?
AI Interview Agents does. A real-time voice interview needs three parts working in Zulu: speech recognition that hears the answer, a model that writes the next question from what the candidate said, and a voice that speaks it. Speech recognition and the voice both come from Microsoft Azure and are set to Zulu as spoken in South Africa. The model writes each follow-up in Zulu from the candidate's last answer, so a short or vague answer gets a probing question instead of the next item on a list.
Other vendors publish their own language lists, and a language on a list does not always mean the spoken interview runs in it. Ask each vendor three questions: does the spoken interview itself run in Zulu, or only the screens; does it ask follow-up questions in Zulu; and what language is the scored report in. Our comparison of AI interview tools covers the other differences.
Which form of Zulu does the interviewer speak?
There is one choice: Zulu (South Africa). The interviewer is called Themba.
What does the candidate hear in Zulu?
The interviewer greets the candidate, asks its questions, follows up and closes the interview in Zulu, in plain, professional wording. Candidates often mix in English words for workplace terms, such as project, team or deadline, and the interviewer keeps those words the way the candidate used them instead of forcing a translation. It does not guess the candidate's gender from their name. The buttons and on-screen instructions in the interview room are shown in Zulu too.
Most of what the interviewer says is written live from the role and the candidate's answers. A few lines are fixed. Here are two of them in Zulu (South Africa), word for word, with the English they were written from:
- When it rephrases a question: "Uxolo, ake ngikubeke ngenye indlela. Ungangitshela kabanzi ngalokho osanda kukusho?" In English: "Sorry, let me rephrase that. Could you tell me a bit more about your last point?"
- When it closes the interview: "Ngiyabonga futhi ngesikhathi sakho namuhla, Maria. Ithimba lizoxhumana nawe maduze. Singaqeda lapha." In English: "Thanks again for your time today, Maria. The team will be in touch shortly. We can wrap up here."
On 22 October 2026 the fixed lines were spoken by the Zulu voices, transcribed back and compared with the written text. What came back was close to the written text.
What language is the report in for Zulu interviews?
The transcript stays in Zulu. The scored report is written in English, so a recruiter who does not speak Zulu can read it, unless the recruiter's dashboard is set to German, French, Spanish, Swedish or Italian, in which case the report follows the dashboard.
The online report and the PDF download both show the candidate's words in Zulu.
Answer highlight clips, the short videos of a candidate's best answers, are made for English, Hindi and Modern Standard Arabic interviews only, so Zulu interviews have no clips.
What stays in English for Zulu interviews?
- The WhatsApp invitation, which is sent for English interviews only. Zulu interviews are sent by email, and the email is written in Zulu.
- The recruiter dashboard, which is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Italian.
- The printed QR code poster for a role's hiring link.
- Phone screening calls, which do not run in Zulu. The Zulu interview runs in the browser, on a phone or a computer.
How do you set up an interview in Zulu?
- Create a role. In the interview language list, type Zulu and pick Zulu (South Africa).
- Add your own questions, or let the product write them from the job description. It writes them in Zulu.
- Invite candidates by email. They open the link in the browser on a phone or a computer, with no app and no account.
- Read the transcript and the scored report, then decide who moves on. The interviewer does not decide.
Before you invite candidates, take one test interview yourself or ask a colleague who speaks Zulu to take it. If anything sounds wrong, write to contact@aiinterviewagents.com. The full list of languages is on interview languages.
You can try it on the free plan. The pricing page lists what each plan includes.