What an AI receptionist actually does on a business line

An AI receptionist answers your business number when you have told it to, talks with the caller, and then does one of a few specific things: puts them through to a person, takes a written message, or looks something up in your own systems. Here is exactly what Vocivo's does, and where its limits are.

Where it sits

Calls still arrive over your own carrier and your own SIP trunk. Each number in Vocivo has a destination, and the AI receptionist is one of the destinations you can choose. Every number has its own on/off switch for it, on the web and in the mobile app, so the main line can go to the receptionist while direct lines ring people.

The voice comes from OpenAI's GPT-Live realtime voice model. OpenAI supplies the conversation. It is not the telephone carrier, and nothing about your trunk or numbers changes when you switch the receptionist on.

What it knows

At the start of every call the receptionist is given live facts about your business:

• your company name and the local time where you are;
• whether you are open right now, your weekly hours and your upcoming holidays;
• the people and teams it may transfer callers to.

These are read when the call starts, so changing your hours on a public holiday needs no republishing. It can also learn from your website: point it at your site and it reads your pages and writes a brief built only from facts published there. You review the brief before you publish it.

What it can do

Transfer to a person

A transfer names an extension, such as John · ext 1000. The receptionist can only transfer to extensions on its list. It cannot be talked into dialling a number a caller reads out, which is the path by which a stranger could be connected to somebody's mobile.

Take a written message

When nobody can take the call, the receptionist collects the message, the caller's name and a callback number, reads the message back, and leaves it as text in the voicemail inbox of the person you chose. It appears in the web app and on their phone with a "Mark as read" control.

Call your systems

A webhook action lets the receptionist ask your own system a question during the call, such as the status of an order, and use the answer. You define what the action is for and what it may send.

What it will not do

It works from what you give it. If your website says nothing about delivery times, it has nothing reliable to say about delivery times either. Tell it what to do when it does not know: take a message, or transfer to a person. It does not invent people to transfer to, and it does not place calls to arbitrary numbers.

Telling callers

With GPT-Live the caller's voice audio is processed by OpenAI. Say so in your greeting, and check the rules where you operate on announcing automated answering and recording. Vocivo's greeting is yours to write, so the disclosure can be in your words and your language.

What it costs

Every Vocivo plan includes AI receptionist minutes each month: 50 per user on Starter, 200 on Business and 500 on Scale. Minutes beyond that cost $0.25 each. The pricing page has a calculator that estimates how many minutes your missed calls would use.

Setting it up

1. Write the greeting and the brief, or learn the brief from your website.
2. Add actions: the extensions it may transfer to, the mailbox for messages, any webhooks.
3. Publish, then place a test call from your own mobile and listen to the whole call.
4. Switch the receptionist on for the numbers it should answer.