Virtual Agents: The Future Workforce for Russian Tech

LLM-powered agents are poised to accelerate digital transformation in Russia, slashing implementation times and dramatically improving user satisfaction. And the country's IT sector is ready to scale.

Around-the-Clock Agents with a Human Touch

Russian startup Target AI has secured 115 million rubles in Pre-Series A funding to develop t.os — a platform for creating AI-based virtual employees. These intelligent agents are designed to automate customer service, sales, and training operations, redefining how companies interact with users.

The technology holds strategic value for Russia’s digital economy. Businesses, particularly in sectors like call centers, tech support, and online sales, face a shortage of skilled personnel. AI agents can bridge this gap, slashing costs while raising customer satisfaction levels. Many experts believe that a single LLM-powered agent can replace entire teams without sacrificing quality.

LLM agents operate autonomously, processing voice and text interactions, learning from new content, and adapting to dynamic environments. They work 24/7, free from sick days or vacations, and they do it at speeds humans can’t match.

For users, the result is a more personalized, efficient experience. For companies, it means streamlined processes, better adaptability to changing market needs, and easy scalability — particularly for repetitive workflows like order processing.

We are the first platform in Russia to specialize in voice-based LLM agents, leveraging proprietary know-how in audio pipelines. Over 70 enterprise-level companies in e-commerce, retail, insurance, and telecom already work with us. Our new investments will go toward developing our product platform, improving validation and testing tools to ensure reliability in client business processes. We’re also targeting the corporate EdTech sector with specialized LLM-agent applications

Andrey Zimenkov

co-founder and CEO of Target AI

A Booming Market for Smarter Automation

Russia’s customer service automation market is expanding rapidly — growing at around 40% annually. In 2024, it reached 14 billion rubles and is expected to hit 50 billion rubles by 2029. Startups focused on modern AI solutions are well-positioned to ride this wave. Among them, Target AI stands out for its leadership in deploying multi-agent architectures and its ability to compete with Western tech.

The company's LLM-agent technology is also geared for international growth. With increasing demand for digital assistants across Eastern Europe, Central and Southeast Asia, and Latin America, there’s growing interest in alternatives to U.S.-centric platforms.

Target AI plans to use the newly raised funds to accelerate global rollout. The company expects to sign its first international clients between 2026 and 2027. Still, it won’t be an easy ride — global giants like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Intercom continue to dominate the automation space.

From NLU to LLM: The Next Tech Leap

AI is evolving at breakneck speed. Natural Language Understanding (NLU) bots are being replaced by Large Language Model (LLM) technologies. The shift to multi-agent frameworks is already underway. And over the past two years, interest from venture capital firms in AI automation startups has surged.

Target AI’s recent investment round was led by a group of funds including Hive and the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF). The funding will support t.os platform development, integration with external systems, and long-term scalability.

For Russia, advancements in AI and system automation are key to staying competitive in the global digital innovation race.