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2025 B2B Guide to AI Phone Calls (and how to find success)
April 3, 2025
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AI phone calls aren’t a future trend anymore, in 2025, businesses are gaining a significant edge and boost in efficiency with calls automated with AI voice agents. It shouldn't take a developer to step your business’s calls to the next level, and with AI voice apps and call platforms there’s never been an easier time to integrate AI into your call operations.

Interested in getting your business’s calls automated? This guide breaks down what every business needs to know about automating phone calls with AI voice agents, ensuring you choose the right options 

How Are AI Calls Made?

AI phone calls are made possible by intelligent voice agents powered by large language models and telephony systems. These AI agents are designed to conduct natural and empathetic conversations over the phone. 

Using voice AI to sound as natural and human-like as possible, these agents can take or make calls, answer questions, qualify leads, route requests, and more key tasks that reliably enhances customer experiences.

An AI voice app is the platform or environment where those agents live. Think of it as the layer between the AI model and your customers — it handles everything from speech synthesis to real-time integrations with your CRM, APIs, and databases. The best AI voice apps bring natural language understanding, customizable flows, and seamless telephony all in one.

How AI calls are made diagram: Speech-to-text, LLM, Action, and Text-to-speech..

What Is an AI Phone Call Platform?

An AI phone call platform is the software platform that powers your AI phone calls, enabling the agent to speak, listen, take action, and integrate with your systems in real time. Unlike generic chatbots or voice transcription tools, AI voice apps are purpose-built for live phone conversations. They combine telephony infrastructure, speech recognition, and real-time data connections into a seamless experience.

Why Automate Calls?

If your business still runs on traditional phone systems with human agents, you’re leaving serious efficiency on the table. AI voice agents address the biggest problems with traditional call workflows like: manual work

Manual scheduling, profile updates, lead qualification, post call analysis, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg for what AI can automate and streamline for your team’s workflow and efficiency…beyond calling.

AI call automation benefits: 24/7 Call Coverage, Massive Scalability, Cost Efficiency, Supercharged Speed & Accuracy, and Better Customer Experiences.

Why Businesses Can’t Afford to Wait

The business advantages of automating call operations with AI phone agents are impactfully straight to the point:

  • Time saving
  • Cost saving

Adopting AI phone agents dramatically transforms calling operations making the positive impact on revenue and efficiency near immediate. Depending on the platform, automating your business’ calls can be near instant with AI agents connected, trained, and calling within a couple days, automatically unlocking cost and time efficiency.

Recent reductions in AI model pricing (some up to 87%) mean the cost to automate calls is dropping rapidly. AI voice agents scale non-linearly, so doubling your call volume doesn’t require doubling the amount of agents. Depending on the platform, one agent can handle tens to hundreds of calls. Being available 24/7 as well, they can serve the needs of your inbound or outbound calling operations autonomously.

On top of this all, call automation eliminates expensive outsourcing. Say goodbye to tired, old call scripts that produce half measured results with minimal input from external staff. Unlock more valuable and dynamic outbound efforts and streamlined inbound customer support that keeps customers loyal for life. The faster you automate your calls the faster you will see:

  • Reduction in churn
  • Boosts in top line growth
  • Explosion in customer satisfaction

Dive deep into what businesses are unlocking with AI phone call automation:

24/7 Call Coverage

AI phone agents don’t clock out, turn off, take breaks making them ideal for handling calls day and night.

Call spikes, after hours calls, limited staffing, etc. are all issues of the past with AI voice agents. With comprehensive call management, they can handle call overflow with ease, ensuring your call operations always have an agent ready to take a call virtually 24/7. 

The most immediate benefits of AI voice apps automating your businesses calls is:

  • Sorry our office is currently closed, leave a voicemail or call back… Callers calling after hours are usually stopped by phone menus that prompt callers to leave a voicemail only for the mailbox to be full. AI phone agents can support callers after hours, answering questions, intaking information, and creating support tickets for the team to handle if the agent cannot properly assist the caller.

  • Weekend Warriors. Just because you don’t work weekends doesn't mean your leads won’t reach out then. Phone agents ensure that no lead is missed, working the phone while you rest, so when Monday rolls around you have a list of leads to close.
     
  • Anytime, Anywhere. Global campaigns running across time zones

Usually businesses turn to outsourcing to handle 24/7 coverage, but that comes with additional training and loss in quality for your inbound callers. Trusting people paid to just pick up the phone without any connection or care for the impact they have on clients can damage customer trust beyond repair overtime. AI voice agents, enabled by company data and training, will ensure that every caller's needs are tended to. 

Additionally, you will never miss a lead again.  Whether it’s a caller expressing general interest, booking a demo, or asking product questions, AI voice agents can intake information, qualify interest, and even trigger CRM workflows automatically to ensure all potential leads are evaluated and captured. 

That means fewer voicemails, fewer missed calls, and more value out of every interaction—all without needing a human on the other end of the line.

Massive Scalability

Manual call centers hit capacity fast. Whether you’re a five-person team or a company managing hundreds of reps, there’s always a ceiling to how many calls can be handled at once. AI voice agents tear that ceiling down, allowing businesses to scale conversations as fast as demand grows—without adding headcount or cutting quality.

This scalability means more than just handling a higher call volume, it enables your business to grow without reworking your infrastructure every time you get a surge in activity.

Consider these benefits when evaluating scalability:

  • Elastic capacity, instantly. Need to handle 10,000 outbound calls today? Or support a sudden inbound spike? No problem, AI voice agents scale on demand with zero lead time, unlike hiring and training new reps.
  • Batch calling capabilities. For outbound campaigns, batch calling lets businesses automate thousands of outreach calls. That means sales follow-ups, NPS outreach, appointment reminders—all without waiting on your team’s availability.
  • Never lose momentum. Traditional call centers miss leads when things get busy. AI voice agents ensure you always have coverage, regardless of volume, giving you a seamless advantage when speed and responsiveness matter most.

Scaling your calling operations with advanced AI isn’t just a convenience, it’s the difference between seizing opportunities and letting them slip through the cracks, providing excellent for most businesses' call operations.

Watch Out! Call concurrency varies from platform to platform. Before selecting an AI phone call platform for your business, ensure it supports the call concurrency necessary for your operations.

Most Cost Efficiency

Call automation and full call management never came at such a good price, until now. Eliminating the hidden and sunken costs of traditional call centers, AI phone agents operate at a cost efficiency never before seen.

From training and turnover to idle time and missed leads, manual call operations are riddled with inefficiencies that AI simply doesn’t have. By offloading repetitive workflows like appointment setting, qualification, and follow-ups, freeing your team to focus on what moves the needle. 

Think of cost savings in layers:

  • No salaries, no shifts, no turnover. A single AI voice agent can handle the workload of dozens of reps—without HR overhead, sick days, or training cycles. It’s not about replacing people; it’s about augmenting your operation with round-the-clock precision.
Human phone agent versus AI phone agent efficiency chart.
  • Fewer missed calls = higher conversion rates. With every missed call potentially coming as a lost revenue opportunity, AI voice agents answering your calls will have a real positive impact on the balance sheet.

The real cost efficiency comes from the compounding effect: more leads captured, more calls handled per hour, and fewer delays in getting customers what they need. That adds up—fast.

Tip for evaluating ROI. Think bigger than just comparing AI to human reps line by line. What does it cost your business to wait on responses, lose leads after hours, or under-resource your phone team during a launch? AI turns those leaks into leverage—helping you grow faster, not just cheaper.

Supercharged Speed & Accuracy

Hyper speed in business communications has never been seen until AI voice agents. Customers want answers fast, resolutions faster, and no time wasted navigating outdated phone trees.

Instead of sending callers through endless menus or putting them on hold for ten minutes just to speak to the wrong person, AI voice agents can detect caller intent and act accordingly — whether it’s scheduling an appointment, resolving an issue on the spot, or forwarding them to the right human specialist.

The most powerful ways AI agents are speeding up workflows and supercharging efficiency:

  • Instant access to data. Instantly pull customer data and personalize the conversation to secure leads and streamline support.

  • Trigger actions during the call (not after). No flipping between tools. No “let me transfer you to someone who can help.” Just accurate, seamless service through integrations with your existing business tools and systems. Updates made immediately in real time:
    • Schedule Appointments/Meetings/Events
    • Create Tickets In CRM Systems
    • Update Customer Profiles
    • Leads Qualified

But speed isn’t just about getting through the call quickly. It’s about eliminating friction for both your customers and team alike. When agents have access to internal systems and APIs via secure integrations, they can make real decisions, verify information, and reduce the back and forth that kills call satisfaction.

Because every interaction is logged in real-time, your sales and support teams won’t waste hours piecing together customer intent. It’s already there, ready for action.

That means faster resolutions, fewer errors, and zero time wasted flipping between systems.

Emotional Intelligence at Scale

AI voice agents are becoming more than just efficient, they’re becoming empathetic. With advancements in voice synthesis and emotional tuning, AI agents can express patience, warmth, and tone in ways that sometimes outperform humans.

This is especially important for:

  • Sensitive calls like collections or healthcare reminders.
  • High-stress customer support scenarios.
  • Brand-critical sales and onboarding interactions.

Because they never tire, forget, or lose their temper, AI voice agents can deliver consistent, emotionally intelligent experiences at scale…something even the best human teams struggle to maintain.

Better Customer Experiences

Forget the music. Forget the frustration of bouncing between departments. AI voice agents are redefining how businesses deliver phone-based customer service, and customers are noticing…

  • Conversations that feel human. Trained on natural speech patterns and customized to your brand tone, AI voice agents don’t sound robotic — they listen, adapt, and respond like a true representative would.
  • Zero-friction resolution. No bouncing between departments or explaining the same issue multiple times. Smart call routing and real-time system access let AI agents solve problems quickly and completely.
  • No more waiting. Every call is handled instantly — even during spikes in volume — so your customers never sit in a queue or hang up in frustration.

Traditional phone lines with

Voice agents aren’t only creating a seamless and modernized customer service experience, AI trends are shaping customer service as a whole in 2025. Customer service has been unsatisfactory for too long, but with AI voice agents there is now a reliable way to keep customer experience streamlined and ultra valuable, leaving your business consistently in good graces.

Look into our comparison between human and AI voice agents, and deep dive on the best use cases of AI voice agents to learn more!

The AI Voice Ecosystem in 2025: A Market on Fire

In 2025, the AI voice ecosystem is experiencing explosive growth. Fueled by breakthroughs in real-time speech technology and the falling cost of large language models (LLMs), startups and enterprises alike are racing to build solutions on top of this maturing infrastructure.
 

According to a16z, over 20% of a recent Y Combinator cohort was dedicated to voice AI startups alone, signaling a groundswell of innovation across horizontal and vertical use cases.


What this means for your business: voice AI is no longer a fringe tool

Voice AI Market Map
Voice AI Market Map


It's becoming a foundational infrastructure for customer communication. This is the time to evaluate vendors, pilot new use cases, and find the "wedge" that gives your business an early advantage in voice based automation.

Leading With People: Managing Change, Not Just Technology

The biggest blocker to AI adoption isn’t the tech, it’s people. Introducing AI voice agents often stirs fear that automation will replace jobs or diminish the value of human workers. 

But the reality is more nuanced:

  • AI takes over repetitive and low-leverage tasks, not the strategic, human ones.
  • Most successful teams use AI to free up staff for higher-value work.
  • Internal transparency matters - proactively communicating that AI is there to assist, not replace, builds trust and accelerates adoption.

Leadership should frame AI voice as a way to remove bottlenecks and stress from their teams. Instead of fearing productivity tracking, employees can be shown how automation improves outcomes they’re already measured on like response time, customer satisfaction, and conversion rates.

Training Humans to Collaborate With AI

Human + AI is the new team structure. To make that work:

  • Create familiarity. Train teams on where AI excels and where human intuition is still essential.
  • Keep room for high-value human trust.Create escalation paths where AI hands off to people, masking sure those people are equipped to handle the context.
  • Involve your team in improving the agent. Ask for feedback on how conversations flow and what gaps exist.

By empowering humans to guide AI, not compete with it, you unlock a more productive, collaborative workforce that reaps the full benefits of this revolutionary automation..

Where Businesses Are Using AI Voice Apps

AI phone calls are such diverse and multifaceted tools that they have entered and transformed every major industries’ calling operations. From reducing operational overhead to scaling personalized customer interactions, AI phone calls now play a central role in how businesses in every industry handle telecommunication at scale.

1. Healthcare

Phone lines are often a bottleneck for healthcare providers, especially when clinics, hospitals, or pharmacies rely on human agents to field the bulk of patient requests. With AI voice agents for healthcare, healthcare providers can automate repetitive, administrative workflows, ultimately reducing pressure on front desk teams while improving access and response times for patients.

More than just a receptionist, AI agents can support patient intake by capturing insurance info, verifying eligibility, and routing calls to clinical or billing departments based on need. They’re available 24/7, so patients who call after hours still get support, and care teams walk into their shift with all the details already logged.

Patient Frontdesk & Management

  • Appointment Booking & Confirmations: Never miss a booking — agents can schedule, reschedule, and confirm visits without hold times.
  • Front Desk Support: Intake patient info, verify insurance details, and route calls based on medical vs. admin needs.
  • Pharmacy Requests & Info Lookups: Handle prescription refills, availability questions, and provider info instantly.
  • Follow-Up Care: Trigger post-visit calls and reminders to reduce no-shows and boost patient engagement.
  • Smart Routing & Surveys: Direct calls by urgency, collect structured feedback, and escalate when needed—automatically.

Tip to improve patient experience! Use voice agents to follow up after appointments and trigger satisfaction surveys for an easy way to improve service quality and identify gaps in patient experience.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Healthcare!

2. Finance 

Speed, accuracy, and trust are non-negotiables in financial services, and AI voice agents are helping financial institutions meet those demands at scale. AI phone agents automate the most time consuming parts of the financial customer journey, all while being trained on your custom compliance standards and product rules, reducing risk while freeing your human teams to focus on high value conversations.

Loans/Lending

  • Loan Application Calls: Qualify applicants the moment they fill out a form online, then hand off to a human if needed.
  • Lead Engagement: Contact active leads and chase down aged or unresponsive leads and filter out the real prospects worth pursuing.
  • Account Support: Let AI handle balance inquiries, loan updates, and basic support—freeing up licensed reps.
  • Collections Outreach: Automate self-pay reminders and start payment plan discussions, all while staying fully compliant.
  • Real-Time CRM Sync: Every interaction can be logged, tagged, and routed directly into your systems, no manual entry needed.

AI phone calls in finance are primarily used to qualify loan applicants, handle account inquiries, and automate collections. Automating these inefficient yet crucial tasks streamline customer journeys while cutting down on overhead, response lag, and manual errors.

Watch Out! Voice agents can misfire without domain-specific training. Be sure your ai phone call platform allows for industry-specific prompt tuning and testing — especially if you operate in a regulated vertical.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Finance!

3. Travel & Hospitality

Travel doesn’t follow business hours. Whether it’s a 2 am booking inquiry, a guest checking in late, or a last-minute room service request, hospitality teams can’t afford to miss a call or fumble the guest experience. That’s where AI voice agents shine.

Instead of bouncing callers between departments or missing inquiries altogether, voice agents handle a wide range of guest needs instantly. AI calls in hospitality eliminates the need for extensive late-night staffing and ensures no inquiry is ever missed, even during peak seasons or off-hours. With advanced AI on the phone, hospitality staff can focus on creating a better experience for patrons rather than waiting for the phone to ring.

Front Desk / Concierge / Booking Agent

  • Reservation Handling: Change requests, availability checks, confirmations—done in seconds.
  • Front Desk Overflow: Let your AI take the call during peak check-in times or when staff is helping in-person guests.
  • 24/7 Concierge Support: Agents never sleep—so your guests are always supported, no matter when they call.
  • Upsell Opportunities: Offer upgrades, spa services, or in-house dining in a conversational and timely way.
  • Maintenance & Room Requests: Route housekeeping, fix-it tickets, or valet needs directly without interrupting the front desk.
  • Post-Stay Feedback: Automate follow-up calls and survey collection while the experience is still fresh.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Hospitality!

4. Insurance

The insurance industry runs on trust, accuracy, and timing with AI voice agents helping firms deliver on all three, around the clock. Instead of relying on overburdened front desks or outsourced call centers, insurers can use AI voice agents trained on internal workflows and compliance protocols. 

The result? Smarter outreach, smoother intake, and happier clients—all while reducing manual workloads and boosting operational agility.

Front Desk / Sales & Lead Generation

  • Lead Qualification & Follow-Up: Instantly screen leads, ask qualifying questions, and follow up with interested buyers no chasing required.
  • Policy Sales Support: AI can pitch policy types, answer FAQs, and tee up qualified prospects for licensed agents to close.
  • 24/7 Front Desk Coverage: Capture caller info, route requests, and generate CRM tickets anytime even when your team’s offline.
  • Overflow & After-Hours Intake: During surges or nights/weekends, AI steps in to keep service levels high and wait times low.
  • Data Capture + Automation: Intake call info and auto-create tasks in your CRM or help desk for faster processing and better tracking.

Perhaps the most overlooked value: compliance readiness. With AI voice agents trained to follow custom call flows and capture disclosures verbatim, insurance providers can ensure consistently compliant conversations across all touchpoints. Especially when operating across multiple states or policy types, AI agents unlock a new level of compliance assurance and peace of mind.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Insurance!

5. Retail

AI voice agents are fast becoming the secret weapon for retailers managing complex customer journeys at scale. Manual call handling just doesn’t scale the way these businesses need. 

Long hold times, missed calls, and inconsistent service cost retailers sales and erode brand trust. With AI phone automation, every call gets answered, every inquiry is logged, and every customer gets what they need faster than ever.

Sales & Lead Generation / Customer Service

  • Phone-In Ordering: Customers can place or update orders over the phone with zero hold time and no staff needed.
  • Order Status Updates: Instantly provide real-time tracking details and delivery status using customer-provided info.
  • Missed Delivery Follow-Ups: Automatically call customers to confirm whether they still want an item or want it returned — reducing costly RTOs.
  • Post-Purchase Support: Handle returns, refunds, product questions, and satisfaction surveys without overwhelming your team.
  • Outbound Promotions: Run seasonal or flash sales outreach at scale with voice agents that sound just like your brand.
  • Franchise Enablement: Standardize call experience across locations and offload calls from store staff — especially during high foot traffic hours.

Franchises and retail chains who have outbound operations benefit from scalable outbound sales campaigns and round-the-clock coverage, even during peak seasons or staff shortages.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Retail!

6. Home Services

In home services, every missed call is a missed job. With HVAC, plumbing, pest control, solar, etc. customers often call when there’s an urgent need, and they expect fast, professional support that typically isn’t met by manual call handling, voicemail, or overloaded dispatchers—leading to frustrated clients, lost leads, and missed revenue.

That’s where AI voice agents come in. These agents don’t just answer the phone, they are fully capable receptionists, schedulers, and sales assistants. They can intake service requests, triage emergencies, schedule appointments, and follow up with clients post-visit all in real time and without any bottlenecks.

Receptionist & Dispatcher / Sales & Lead Qualification

  • Emergency Dispatching: No heat? Burst pipe? AI voice agents handle urgent requests, collect key info, and escalate to an on-call team in seconds.
  • Service Intake & Scheduling: Agents qualify jobs, gather address and issue details, and schedule appointments directly into your system.
  • Overflow & After-Hours Coverage: During peak season or nights/weekends, AI agents handle the call queue so staff can stay focused on the job site.
  • Maintenance Plans & Upsells: Proactively call customers to renew service plans or offer seasonal checkups and tune-ups.
  • Project Bookings: For solar, remodels, or smart home installs, voice agents can call leads, book consultations, and prep intake forms.
  • Customer Follow-Up: Post-service calls for satisfaction surveys, invoice reminders, or next service scheduling.

Tip to book more jobs! Many home service businesses only use AI for emergency dispatch or after-hours coverage, but the biggest ROI often comes from automating routine appointment scheduling and proactive outreach. Use AI agents to remind customers about upcoming seasonal maintenance (like A/C tune-ups or furnace checks), and you’ll reduce no shows, increase repeat business, and free up your staff for higher-value tasks.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Home Services!

7. Logistics

Freight, air cargo, and storage companies are automating their phone workflows to keep pace with the real-time demands of transportation logistics. AI voice agents are especially valuable in dispatch and brokerage operations, where speed, accuracy, and volume are critical. 

These agents can negotiate loads, confirm details, and handle outbound or inbound calls without slowing down your dispatchers or overloading internal teams. The result: faster bookings, better pricing control, and less operational overhead.

Dispatch / Brokerage / Support

  • Load Booking & Dispatch Support: From negotiating rates to confirming load details, AI can assist or handle entire dispatch workflows while logging every detail.
  • Carrier Outreach at Scale: Source available trucks and follow up with aged broker leads without burning through staff time.
  • Status Checks & RTO Handling: Automatically handle “Where’s my shipment?” calls or failed deliveries (return to origin) with intelligent lookups.
  • Real-Time API & TMS Integrations: Agents can pull and push data from your TMS, CRM, or carrier portals to ensure accurate and timely updates.
  • Freight Tech Platform Enhancement: If you’re building your own logistics SaaS or running operations on one, voice agents can become a powerful UX layer.

Do outbound smarter! Most logistics companies see fast ROI by starting with outbound automation, especially for repetitive dispatcher calls, but the real magic happens when you connect your AI agents to rate engines and CRM tags. This allows your agents to route leads based on lane preferences, prioritize high-value loads, and instantly update availability.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Logistics!

8. Debt Collection

Let’s be honest, no one wants to get a debt collection call, but when done right, these conversations can make all the difference in recovering revenue while preserving the customer relationship. The key? Timing, tone, and consistency.

AI voice agents give debt collection teams a scalable way to engage debtors early, explain their options clearly, and guide them through payment plan negotiations, all while maintaining compliance and professionalism.

Operations Management

  • Outbound Collection Calls: Proactively reach debtors with consistent, professional messaging, and scale contact rates 10x overnight.
  • Payment Reminders: Automate payment nudges before they’re due or escalate missed payments with follow-up calls that don’t feel aggressive.
  • Compliance & Professionalism: Stick to scripts, log disclosures, and avoid costly errors with fully auditable, regulation-ready voice agents.
  • Follow-Up Automation: Set agents to re-engage unresponsive debtors on a pre-defined cadence, no manual chasing required.

Types of Collections 

  • B2B Collections
  • Legal Debt Collection
  • Medical Debt Collection

Learn more about AI voice agents in Debt Collection!

9. Telecommunications

Telecom companies operate at the intersection of massive scale and high complexity, juggling millions of customers, regional networks, regulatory requirements, and 24/7 support queues. In this environment, AI voice agents unlock entirely new ways to streamline and hypercharge operations.

By taking the front lines of inbound support, AI agents gather caller info, triage issues, and even trigger backend diagnostics before a human ever gets involved. The result? Reduced ticket volume, faster resolutions, and customers who spend less time on hold and more time getting answers.

Customer Service / Diagnostics / Backend Optimization

  • Smart Issue Triage: Detect the nature of a call (e.g., billing, outage, technical) and route accordingly—no confusing IVR menus required.
  • Live Network Diagnostics: Trigger backend checks for outages, service disruptions, or account-specific flags in real time.
  • Proactive Escalation: Spot critical issues early and route to the appropriate team before customer frustration boils over.
  • Service Resets & Self-Help: Walk customers through simple resets, FAQs, or plan details without tying up live agents.
  • Customer Context Sync: Feed AI-summarized call info directly into your network systems and agent dashboards for smarter follow-ups.

Even better, telecom providers can finally scale personalized service without inflating headcount, delivering much needed change to the quality of support the industry is notorious for offering.

Learn more about AI voice agents in Telecom!

10. Real Estate

In real estate, timing is everything, and the way things are currently done is too slow. That’s why brokerages and real estate platforms are leaning into AI voice agents — they’re fast, persistent, and immune to burnout.

AI voice agents in real estate help agents pre-qualify leads, confirm showings, and manage follow-ups with minimal manual effort reducing labor hours and increasing conversions. They ensure no call goes unanswered, no lead slips through, and no opportunity gets delayed. From the first inquiry to post-tour follow-ups, they handle it all, so human agents have the bandwidth to focus on client relationships and high-value closings.

Lead & Client Management

  • Lead Capture & Pre-Qualification: Instantly engage buyers or sellers, ask screening questions, and route only serious leads to agents.
  • Appointment Coordination: Book showings, schedule consultations, and confirm open house attendance automatically.
  • Follow-Up That Never Slips: Send reminders, gather post-tour feedback, and keep the conversation moving — even when reps are busy.
  • 24/7 Inquiries: Field questions about listings, availability, and neighborhood info any time, day or night.
  • CRM-Ready Data Logging: Log conversation insights, next steps, and buyer intent straight into your system of record.

Supercharge lead conversion! Pair AI voice agents with smart call tracking to see which lead sources convert best. When every call is captured, logged, and analyzed, you don’t just automate — you optimize.

Watch our in-depth guide on building outbound AI voice agents for mortgage leads to learn more!
 

11. On-Demand Services 

Speed is the foundation of the on-demand world, with the leading on-demand platforms building AI voice agents into their infrastructure, not as an add-on, but as a core operational layer.

From dispatching drivers and confirming orders to fielding surge-time inquiries or handling support overflow, AI agents are built to match the real-time demands of high-volume platforms.By integrating directly with scheduling tools, logistics APIs, and internal knowledge bases, AI voice agents don’t just deflect calls, they resolve them faster than ever before.

Customer Support / Operations

  • Instant Support Triage: Handle high call volumes during peak hours without losing speed or quality.
  • Order Updates & Confirmations: Keep customers informed with real-time status checks and delivery confirmations.
  • Dispatch Coordination: Connect with drivers and couriers to reroute, reschedule, or resolve issues without human lag.
  • Overflow & After-Hours Coverage: AI agents don’t need shift breaks — they scale automatically with call volume.
  • Issue Resolution on the Fly: From missing items to billing inquiries, agents can solve problems or escalate instantly.

Watch out! Most missed calls in this space aren’t from customers, they’re from couriers or support reps in motion, so AI voice agents ensure your system doesn’t just pick up the call but it understands the intent, takes action, and keeps your business moving.

Developing Use Cases

AI phone automation is turning into an all inclusive line of communication between customers, employees, and prospects that can handle SMS and online chats. Depending on the platform, these additional lines of communication are being automated giving voice agents an expanding and dynamic role in advancing businesses in 2025.

While industries like healthcare, finance, and retail have clear AI voice applications, new use cases are being developed that extend beyond traditional business communications internally and externally.

HR & Recruiting: AI phone agents can conduct first-round interviews, pre-screen candidates, and even simulate job scenarios. One staffing agency using voice AI saw interview completion over double with more candidates moving to the final round than before. 

In 2025’s less than ideal job market conditions, voice AI can help level the playing field and give a higher chance for candidates to successfully navigate the hiring process with less human bias.

Internal IT Help Desks: Large organizations are turning to voice AI for internal support like password resets, VPN troubleshooting, and equipment requests. AI voice agents can reference all internal documentation to answer and support staff at lightning speeds, ultimately reducing IT ticket load.

Government Services: Even dinosaur systems that are notorious within government systems can be modernized with AI voice agents. From DMV appointment booking to after-hours information hotlines, public agencies are exploring voice AI to provide 24/7 support without increasing headcount, giving them a much needed boost in efficiency.

Training Simulations: Sales and customer service teams are using voice agents to simulate real-world calls, offering trainees a risk-free environment to practice and get up to standard, quicker.

Finding Success With AI Phone Calls

AI voice agents aren’t just picking up the phone, they’re redefining how key workflows across marketing, sales, and customer service are executed. These are the mission critical features modern businesses rely on to drive real ROI from AI phone calls.

It’s no longer about replacing call center staff, it’s about reimagining how businesses create value in every conversation. From lead conversion to customer loyalty, AI voice agents are quietly transforming high-volume communication into efficient, insight-driven operations. Below are the specific capabilities that unlock this transformation.


Lead Qualification & Generation

Imagine this: A potential lead visits your site at 10 PM, fills out a form — and within minutes, gets a call back from your AI agent. The agent asks the right questions, gauges interest, and books a meeting with your sales team. No delay. No dropout.

AI voice agents can engage leads at scale by asking intelligent pre-qualifying questions, identifying interest level, and automatically booking meetings with high-intent prospects. This streamlines top-of-funnel activity and ensures sales teams only spend time on conversations that convert. Explore this core use case and more in learning more about AI lead generation strategies.

Tip: Train your AI agents with real examples of successful discovery calls to fine-tune qualification logic.

Call Routing & Warm Transfer

In traditional systems, misrouted calls lead to drop-off, frustration, and churn. With AI voice agents, callers are matched to the right human, or fully handled, immediately.

Using LLM intelligence and no clunky menus, AI voice agents route calls to the appropriate destination instantly. When human intervention is needed, agents can initiate a warm transfer, handing off the conversation without repeating information or losing momentum. This is essential for complex customer interactions, journeys, and high-value leads.

Insight: Warm transfers have been shown to increase conversion rates by up to 30% in industries with high-stakes sales or support processes.

International Coverage & Multilingual Support

As businesses expand globally, language should never be a bottleneck to growth. AI voice agents can help your company feel local…even halfway across the world.

AI voice agents aren’t just scaling domestically, they’re enabling businesses to expand operations across borders. With multilingual capabilities, voice agents can converse fluently with customers in their preferred language, breaking down communication barriers and improving accessibility for international teams. In addition to supporting global languages, businesses should consider phone number localization. Choosing between local numbers versus toll-free numbers can impact answer rates, trust, and call performance across regions. 

Watch Out! While LLMs can translate, idiomatic and cultural nuances still require tuning. For the best results in multilingual communications, invest in prompt optimization for each target market.

Spam Labeling Prevention

You’ve got a solid campaign, the perfect message, and high-intent leads, but your number is showing up as “Spam Likely.” That’s game over before the conversation even starts.

No matter how good your AI phone call strategy is, outbound performance suffers if your number is flagged as spam. Platforms that support branded caller IDs and verified phone numbers help ensure calls are delivered, trusted, and picked up, especially in industries that rely on cold outreach or time-sensitive call campaigns, effectively eliminating pesky spam labeling.

Tip: Run test calls to key devices regularly. Carriers update spam filters weekly, don’t assume yesterday’s number will work tomorrow, unless your calls are verified and branded.

Real-Time Feedback & Surveys

Collecting feedback shouldn’t require manual calls, post-call emails, or guesswork. With AI agents, the survey is the call.,

AI voice agents can conduct real time surveys for feedback during or after a call, automating the process of gathering structured responses at scale. Whether it’s post-call satisfaction surveys, product feedback, or regulatory questionnaires, AI voice agents ensure every customer receives and completes surveys consistently, without requiring manual follow-up. This helps businesses collect high-quality survey data in real time, without sacrificing operational efficiency.

Tip: Use branching logic in your survey prompts to adapt questions based on user sentiment or responses.

Data Collection & CRM Sync

Turn every call into a living customer record. That’s not just automation at work, you’re future-proofing your pipeline.

Every AI phone call can be turned into a source of customer data, with top AI voice apps automatically log conversations, tag insights, and sync structured data directly into your CRM or help desk system. Integrating customer data into agents optimizes the agents performance  ensuring your teams always have crucial call data at their fingertips.

Don’t Forget: Make sure your AI phone call platform supports webhook-triggered actions for real-time updates.

Legal Considerations

As AI phone calls become a central part of business communications, legal and regulatory scrutiny is rising, with consent laws tightening, especially for outbound AI calls. Businesses using AI voice apps must proactively navigate evolving laws around consent, recording, and customer privacy, or risk costly litigation and reputational damage. The FCC’s recent one-to-one consent rule has redefined what’s required for legally contacting leads. Learn more to understand and prepare consent structures for necessary compliance.

Call recording laws also vary by state, with many requiring two-party consent — meaning your AI voice agent must disclose recording or reroute the conversation depending on the location. Learn more on legally recording phone calls to understand how your automated call operations remain compliant. 

Tip: Build dynamic prompts that adjust consent disclosures based on area code or data source to stay compliant without adding friction.

Adoption Strategy: Start Narrow, Scale Fast

Voice AI adoption doesn’t happen all at once, and it shouldn’t. Shifting certain parts of the operation overnight is phenomenal, but some parts of call operations take some time and refinement before it can be fully autonomous. 

The most successful implementations begin with a narrow, high-ROI use case and expand over time. This is what leading VCs call the "wedge strategy":

  • Phase 1: Automate repetitive workflows and no...n-complex tasks like after-hours inbound calls for support or appointment scheduling.
  • Phase 2: Expand into more complex tasks like outbound campaigns for lead qualification or payment reminders.
  • Phase 3: After thorough refinement and testing, integrate voice agents with your CRM, knowledge base, and APIs to handle increasingly complex workflows. 

By starting with one measurable use case and building from there, businesses can avoid internal resistance, prove value quickly, and unlock broader automation faster. Business use cases vary and this adoption strategy does not need to be followed, but a methodical and well planned adoption, integration, and agent deployment will always ensure the best results of time and cost savings with AI voice agents.

What Your Business Needs In AI Voice Apps

You’ve heard the pitch: AI voice agents can transform how your business handles communication. But transformation doesn’t happen with a voice that just “sounds human.” It comes from using the right tools under the hood, and picking a platform that’s built for your business’s operations, not just its surface-level goals.

This section is your checklist. Whether you’re in procurement, operations, or product, these are the non-negotiables modern businesses need to consider when evaluating AI voice apps for your business.

Vertical vs. Horizontal and What to Look For

Choosing the right AI voice platform is not just a matter of features, it's all about fit. In 2025, the market is split between horizontal platforms that offer broad customization, and vertical platforms purpose-built for specific industries. Understanding the trade-offs between these approaches is essential to making a smart investment that unlock powerful cost and time savings.

Vertical Platforms are purpose built for industries like healthcare, insurance, finance, or logistics, these platforms often come with:

  • Prebuilt workflows, prompts, and compliance guardrails.
  • Industry-specific vocabulary and regulatory features.
  • Fast time-to-value for teams that want plug-and-play solutions.

These one size fits all applications are best for:

  • Teams with little to no engineering support.
  • Regulated industries that require comprehensive audit trails, consent handling, or local compliance.
  • Businesses that want a ready-made solution and clear onboarding path.

While a vertical solution will be the easy and simple automation solution for some, these platforms can often be restricting and unable to shift to the dynamic and evolving needs of your business. 

Assessing vertical options carefully, ensuring that they are not only the right solution for now but for the future, will lead to the best possible experience in deploying AI voice agents on your business lines.

Horizontal Platforms are more flexible, offering full and custom control over agent creation, functionality, and integration with existing systems. They often support:

  • Custom code or low/no-code agent building.
  • Rich API, webhook, and CRM integrations.
  • Use-case-agnostic features suited to companies building internal tooling or differentiated workflows.

Best for:

  • Product-led or engineering-driven companies.
  • Businesses building proprietary call logic or integrating AI deeply into their product stack.
  • Companies with niche or non-standard workflows that vertical platforms don’t support.

While horizontal AI platforms offer flexibility and control, they often come with greater complexity, requiring more configuration, deeper integration, and sometimes technical expertise to unlock full value. These platforms shine when your workflows are unique or when the automation needs evolve rapidly. 

Choosing a horizontal solution means betting on adaptability: a platform that can scale with your business, support multiple use cases, and grow into a long-term automation layer across teams.

With this understanding of horizontal and vertical platforms, here is a list of the most important things your business needs in your next AI phone agent platform.

Agent Building

Building your first agent should feel exciting…not like learning to code from scratch. Yet not all platforms offer the same level of flexibility. Not all platforms offer the same level of flexibility when it comes to building agents. Platforms vary in coding requirements making it imperative to understand the difference between no code vs custom code platforms to make an informed decision for your business’s call automation needs

If your team wants control over conversation design, prompt logic, and call flows, prioritize platforms with flexible, user-friendly agent builders. Look for:

  • Conversation Flow Editors
  • Prebuilt Prompt Templates
  • Easy Deployment Tools (that speed up iteration cycles)

Part of building agents that streamline and scale is having a platform that can support fast deployment. Don’t just ask what a platform can build, ask how quickly your team can update and test what’s already live to ensure your business will maximize all the benefits from AI voice agents.

Need help choosing a platform? Use our AI calling platform library to easily find the AI voice app that suits your business’s needs.

Platforms
AI Agent Platforms of 2025
Top 5 AI Voice Agent Platforms
Top 5 Dialoglfow Alternatives
Top Voiceflow Alternatives

Comparisons
VS Bland
VS Vapi
VS ElevenLabs
VS Synthflow
VS Thoughtly
VS Air AI
VS Play AI
VS Sierra Labs

Having problems building? Follow our guide on building a good AI voice agent and our guide on troubleshooting common issues for support!

LLM Selection

The technology of conversation has evolved from natural language processing, to a significantly more powerful large language model (LLM). 

The LLM you choose determines how smart, fast, and relevant your AI voice agent sounds, with different models ranging in latency, context retention, and ability to handle specialized vocabulary. Some LLMs excel at general conversations but fumble in niche verticals. Others offer blazing speed but lack context retention. 

Platforms that allow you to plug in custom LLMs, or fine-tune them on your domain-specific data, will always give you a performance edge.

Large Language Model Comparison Table
Tip: Watch for latency issues in real-time calls. Choosing an LLM that balances context length with responsiveness, especially for support or outbound sales, reduces latency issues that would otherwise end up hurting call operations.

System Integration

Smart AI call automation doesn’t live in a vacuum. It depends on fast and reliable access to your company’s backend data, tools, and workflows. Think of voice agent not just as voices, but as operators. It needs to talk to your backend, update CRMs, reference help docs, and log every detail. 

Here’s what top-tier integration should look like:

  • CRM, Database, and API Connections

Your AI voice agents should be able to update customer records, pull account information, trigger actions via APIs, and sync with your CRM — all during the live call. Powered by APIs and webhooks, integrations allow agents to personalize conversations, automate follow-ups, and reduce manual workflows.

  • Knowledge Base Integration

The best AI voice platforms enable easy and fast ways to connect your agents into your knowledge bases. This integration lets you upload documents, help center pages, product manuals, and PDFs as live data sources, simplifying the agent building process. This enables voice agents to surface the right answer instantly without relying on generic responses or outdated scripts.

  • SIP Trunking & Telephony Support

If your business uses VoIP or PBX systems, make sure your AI platform supports SIP trunking: a protocol that routes phone calls over the internet. Without this support, call quality may suffer or compatibility may break your call flow. With many

No number yet? Follow our guide telephony providers and guide that breaks down how to buy your business’s first AI voice agent phone number to help you get started. 

  • Scheduling & External App Integrations

AI voice apps should work alongside your broader business tools, from appointment scheduling platforms to internal ticketing systems, a platform supporting internal and external integrations to your key tools will ensure a seamless and optimized AI voice agent workflow.

Training Your Agent To Your Needs

Training your AI voice agents is crucial to unlocking max performance. The LLM, the intelligence behind the agent, is trained on call transcripts then combined with fine tuned prompt engineering to produce optimized and industry specific AI phone calls. 

AI voice apps which feature conversation flow enable automatic structured conversation pathways that guide the agent's responses based on user input, empowering you to train your agent to your business needs. 

Watch to learn more about conversation flow!

Custom Conversation Design

Your AI voice agent is your new sales rep, support agent, and first impression, making brand tone live in every line it says.  Custom prompting is essentially making your agents stay on brand while being hyper functional and dynamic. 

Fine-tuning tone, structuring logic branches, and inserting business-specific language lets you avoid robotic responses and unlock better results in all aspects of calling. Building your AI voice agents persona using custom prompts unlocks improved voice, tone, accuracy, and natural conversation flow. 

Want more control? Tailor your AI voice agent’s conversation with customized scripts fit exactly to your automated call operation’s needs.

Watch to learn more about building agent personas and conversation design!

Call Concurrency

AI voice apps allow a single agent to handle dozens, or even hundreds, of simultaneous calls, depending on the platform’s infrastructure. This is a game-changer for teams running outbound campaigns, managing high call volumes, or handling spikes in inbound traffic. 

Call volume can break weak platforms. Some agents support 5-10 simultaneous calls. Others, like Retell AI, support hundreds. Call concurrency is the very important detail to consider when assessing a platform's ability to hyperscale your business’s call operations.

Whether you’re batch-dialing leads or reducing hold times during peak hours, high concurrency ensures your AI agents never hit a bottleneck.

Evaluate carefully: What’s your average peak concurrency per agent? What happens when it’s exceeded?

Agent Testing & Analysis

Your AI agent needs ongoing evaluation to maintain high performance. With structured testing, simulation environments, and real-time error tracking, you can proactively identify and resolve bugs or gaps in logic before they impact your customers. 

Post call analysis is a powerful way for agents to learn from calls and develop stronger and optimized conversational abilities in regards to your business. These practices are essential to keeping your AI voice app stable and scalable.

Additionally look for platforms that support:

  • Live simulations
  • Debugging logs
  • Post-call conversation analytics

For the best results, set up weekly reviews of post-call data to fine-tune agent behavior. What gets measured gets improved, ultimately enhancing your whole operations as a whole.

Preventing AI Hallucinations

Your agent’s credibility hinges on accuracy. Hallucinations (when LLMs make stuff up) are dangerous in calls where trust matters. Preventing AI hallucinations Preventing hallucinations starts with structure.Platforms that rely solely on open-ended prompting without control layers are more prone to drifting off course. 

That’s why enterprise-grade solutions include guardrails like:

  • Structured conversation flows to keep calls within approved boundaries.
  • Source-grounded prompting to ensure agents only pull from verified, relevant knowledge bases.
  • Validation logic that checks for correct answers before confirming actions.

Additionally, features like conversation flow are made to help minimize AI hallucinations with structured conversation pathways.

When done right, hallucination prevention doesn’t just reduce risk, it enhances call quality, with your agents staying on-message, on-brand, and on-task, even during long or complex conversations.

Security & Compliance Considerations

When automating calls with AI voice apps, security and ethics go hand in hand. Businesses must ensure that all conversations are transparent, recorded lawfully, and compliant with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA. 

That means disclosing when a caller is an AI, securing customer data with end-to-end encryption, and avoiding deceptive practices. Ethical AI calling isn’t just a legal checkbox — it’s essential for maintaining customer trust and brand integrity.

Security isn’t optional, it’s a business requirement. When evaluating AI voice apps, make sure platforms support:

These guardrails are critical to preserving customer trust. Read more on the ethics of AI phone calls, for an indepth look at how to use AI in calling ethically.

Redefine & Transform Your Business Calls With AI Today!

Conversations are what ultimately drive business and shape innovation, and our mission here at Retell is making these conversations effortless.

What started as a bold idea to make conversations effortless has become an industry revolutionizing AI voice platform. Each milestone marks our commitment to redefining business communication today and for the future.

Retell AI is an conversational AI platform that is redefining how companies interact with customers with AI voice agents that are fast, intelligent, and adaptable at scale. Unlike the rest, Retell develops a bond without clients to keep your shifting needs and priorities with automated calling top of mind when innovating our cutting edge technology. 

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Bing Wu
Co-founder & CEO
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