Do callers know they are talking to an AI?

Yes, and it is on by default. Every agent starts with a spoken disclosure — "This call is handled by an AI assistant and may be recorded." You can rewrite that sentence, or upload a recording of your own voice that plays verbatim before the AI speaks. Each call keeps an audit row of what the caller was told.

What happens to a call at 8pm when nobody is in the office?

The same thing that happens at 2pm. The number is bound to your agent, not to your opening hours, so the call is answered, the caller is heard out, the details you asked for are captured, and the whole thing is waiting in your inbox with a transcript when you next look.

Can it hand a call to a person?

Two ways. Mid-call, the agent can stop and ask a human a question from the dashboard, and your answer is injected into the live conversation. And you can set escalation rules so the agent transfers the call to a person instead of trying to handle it.

Will it know anything about my business?

As much as you point it at. Give it your website or drop in a PDF — your price list, your menu, your service areas — and it answers from that content rather than guessing.

What does a call cost?

Calls are billed per minute of talk time against your credit balance. US voice runs about 2.6¢ a minute, billed in whole minutes. A card on file is required before the agent can dial or receive on a number you own.

What stops a runaway phone bill?

A daily cap on voice minutes and a monthly cap on model spend, both set per workspace. When a cap is hit the work stops rather than quietly continuing, and you get an alert at 50%, 80% and 100% of budget.

Your phone stops going to voicemail.

An AI phone receptionist answers your business number around the clock, has a real conversation with the caller, and captures the details you decided matter — the name, the reason, the callback number. Every call lands in your inbox as a contact, a transcript and a set of filled-in fields, whether it came at 2pm or 2am.

Set up your receptionist What it costs

Calls need a card on file. US voice is about 2.6¢ per talk minute, billed in whole minutes, drawn from your credit balance.

Or just ask for it

Change how the phone is answered, from your phone.

The receptionist you configured by talking to it.

Gmailfrom:octo reception

OctoAnswered at 2:14am — callback captured — Burst pipe, wants a call back before 82:16am

OctoYesterday: 23 calls answered — 19 handled, 4 taken by a personTue

OctoGreeting updated — Now mentions the Saturday hoursMon

InboxAnswered at 2:14am — callback captured

OOcto2:16 AM

Answered a call at 2:14. Kwame Boateng, burst pipe at 14 Alder Road, wants a call back before 8am. Contact created, transcript attached, disclosure given at the top of the call.

Dme6:40 AM

Anything like that overnight, text me as well as emailing.

Octoonline

what did it tell people about saturday?10:12 AM ✓✓

“We’re open 9 to 1 on Saturdays.” It’s answering from the price sheet you sent Tuesday.10:12 AM

good. how many callers asked for me by name?10:13 AM ✓✓

Three this week. All three were offered a callback and two took it.10:13 AM

if they ask for me, put them through to my mobile10:15 AM ✓✓

Set as a handoff. The agent transfers rather than taking a message when your name comes up.10:15 AM

Message➤

#omniocto4 members

DWDana8:05 AM

@Octo what came in overnight?

OOctoAPP8:05 AM

On it 🔧(runninglist_voice_conversations…)

Four calls. One needs you — the burst pipe at 2:14. The other three are booked in. (edited)

👀 2

2 replies · last reply 9m ago

MRMarcus8:21 AM

I’ll take the pipe one

Message #omniocto

Email octo@agent.omniocto.com · WhatsApp 1-MAN-ASK-OCTO · Slack #omniocto

What you see while it happens

The call appears in your inbox as it is being spoken.

Not a notification after the fact. The transcript builds line by line in the same inbox where your email and messages live, so you can look in on a call in progress, or read the whole thing afterwards.

+1 206 ··· ···· 1m 48s

Octo

Good evening, Harbour Dental. This call is handled by an AI assistant and may be recorded — how can I help?

Caller

Hi — I chipped a tooth and I'm in a lot of pain. Can someone see me tomorrow?

Octo

I'm sorry, that sounds painful. I'll get this in front of the team first thing. Can I take your name and the best number to reach you on?

Caller

Dana Whitfield, 206 ··· ····.

Octo

Thank you, Dana. Someone will call you back in the morning.

After the call

Caller: Dana Whitfield
Reason: Chipped tooth, in pain
Urgency: Same week
Callback number: +1 206 ··· ····
Outcome: Message taken

You choose the fields. The agent fills them in from the conversation and they export as columns.

Recorded walkthrough

Evidence slot — not yet recorded A screen recording of a real call arriving belongs here. It has not been filmed, so nothing stands in for it. This page is not published while the slot is empty.

How you'd hand it over

Three steps, all of them a conversation.

Tell Octo what you do

Describe the business in your own words.

You type it the way you'd explain it to a new hire. Octo builds the agent from that — the greeting, the tone, what it should ask, when it should stop and fetch a human.

"We're a dental clinic. Answer the phone after hours, find out what's wrong and how urgent it is, take a callback number. Don't promise appointment times."

Point a number at it

A new number, or the one on your door.

Buy a number in the workspace, or bring your own Twilio account or SIP trunk from the PBX you already run. The number is bound to the agent, so every inbound call on it routes to that agent.

Read it in the morning

Calls, callers and captured fields — all filed.

Each call becomes a conversation in the shared inbox, attached to a contact, with the transcript and the fields you asked for. Nothing to file, nothing to type up.

✓ 6 calls answered overnight · 4 messages taken · 1 escalated

What is actually happening

The parts that make it trustworthy.

Every number knows which agent answers it

An inbound call resolves the dialled number to your workspace, to the voice channel, to the agent bound to it — before the first word. Run several numbers with several agents and they never cross.

number → workspace → channel → agent

The caller becomes a contact, not a phone number

The caller ID is matched against your contacts and attached to the call. A regular who phones on Tuesday and messages on WhatsApp on Friday is one person with one history, not two strangers. Withheld numbers still get a logged call.

caller → contact → conversation history

Your callers are told it's an AI — automatically

Disclosure is on by default with wording you can edit, in as many words as your regulator wants. If you'd rather it were unmistakably human, upload a recording of your own voice and it plays verbatim before the agent speaks. Every call records what the caller was told.

default-ON · editable text or verbatim recording · per-call audit

It can stop and ask you, mid-call

When the agent hits something only you can answer, it raises the question in the dashboard while the caller is still on the line. You type the answer; it goes straight into the live conversation. You can also listen in, send an instruction, or take the call.

ask-a-human · instruction injection · join · mute · hang up

It knows when to stop trying

Escalation rules decide when a call should go to a person instead — a repeated failure to help, a caller who asks for a human, a subject you flagged. The transfer happens on the call, not in an email an hour later.

escalation rules · transfer to human

It answers from your material, not from the air

Point it at your website or upload a PDF price list, menu or service sheet. Answers come out of your own content, and you can see which source an answer came from.

site crawl · PDF, Word, Excel · per-source status

A ceiling you set, not one you discover

Daily voice-minute caps and a monthly model budget, per workspace. Alerts fire at 50%, 80% and 100%, and the cap stops work rather than letting the bill keep running.

daily voice-minute cap · monthly budget · 50/80/100% alerts

Questions

The things people actually ask.

Do callers know they are talking to an AI?: Yes, and it is on by default. Every agent starts with a spoken disclosure — "This call is handled by an AI assistant and may be recorded." You can rewrite that sentence, or upload a recording of your own voice that plays verbatim before the AI speaks. Each call keeps an audit row of what the caller was told.
What happens to a call at 8pm when nobody is in the office?: The same thing that happens at 2pm. The number is bound to your agent, not to your opening hours, so the call is answered, the caller is heard out, the details you asked for are captured, and the whole thing is waiting in your inbox with a transcript when you next look.
Can it hand a call to a person?: Two ways. Mid-call, the agent can stop and ask a human a question from the dashboard, and your answer is injected into the live conversation. And you can set escalation rules so the agent transfers the call to a person instead of trying to handle it.
Will it know anything about my business?: As much as you point it at. Give it your website or drop in a PDF — your price list, your menu, your service areas — and it answers from that content rather than guessing.
What does a call cost?: Calls are billed per minute of talk time against your credit balance. US voice runs about 2.6¢ a minute, billed in whole minutes. A card on file is required before the agent can dial or receive on a number you own.
What stops a runaway phone bill?: A daily cap on voice minutes and a monthly cap on model spend, both set per workspace. When a cap is hit the work stops rather than quietly continuing, and you get an alert at 50%, 80% and 100% of budget.

Keep reading

Related jobs you can hand over.

Start

Hand over the phone.

Set up your receptionist See pricing

Calls need a card on file. US voice is about 2.6¢ per talk minute, billed in whole minutes, drawn from your credit balance.