A customer calls your business.
Instead of reaching voicemail - or waiting for somebody in your team to become available - their call is answered by an AI receptionist.
It can greet the caller, ask questions, collect information and respond based on what it has been set up to know about your business.
And unlike a traditional receptionist, an AI answering service isn't limited to normal office hours.
But what actually happens when somebody calls? What can an AI receptionist realistically do? And is AI telephone answering suitable for every business?
Let's take a closer look.
What is an AI answering service?
An AI answering service uses artificial intelligence to answer incoming telephone calls and have a spoken conversation with the caller.
Rather than asking callers to “press 1 for sales” or “press 2 for accounts”, modern voice AI can listen to what somebody says and respond conversationally.
The AI can be given information about your business, along with instructions about how different types of calls should be handled.
Depending on how the service has been configured, it could answer common questions, collect caller details, take messages or direct an enquiry towards the appropriate next step.
It's essentially another way of handling incoming calls when you don't want every caller to reach voicemail or wait for somebody to become available.
If you'd prefer calls to be answered by a person, a human telephone answering service works differently, with trained receptionists answering calls on behalf of your business.
How does an AI answering service work?
From the caller's point of view, the process can be very simple.
They call your business number and the AI answers the telephone.
The caller speaks normally and explains why they're calling.
The AI listens to what they've said, uses the information and instructions it has been given, and responds.
The conversation then continues depending on what the caller needs.
For example, an AI receptionist might ask:
“Can I take your name?”
“What is the best telephone number to contact you on?”
“Can you tell me briefly what you're calling about?”
It can then collect that information and follow the process it has been set up to use.
Behind that apparently simple conversation, the system is processing the caller's speech, deciding how it should respond and generating a spoken answer.
The aim is for the interaction to feel more like a conversation than navigating a traditional automated telephone menu.
What can an AI receptionist do?
This depends heavily on how the AI has been configured and what systems it is connected to.
An AI receptionist may be able to:
answer incoming calls
greet callers in your business name
ask why somebody is calling
collect names and contact details
take messages
answer agreed frequently asked questions
identify different types of enquiries
collect information your team needs for a callback
follow different instructions depending on the reason for the call
provide agreed information about opening hours or services.
More advanced setups may also be able to interact with other systems, but the exact capabilities will depend on the technology and integrations being used.
The important part isn't giving an AI receptionist as many jobs as possible.
It's deciding which jobs it can handle reliably for your business.
Can an AI receptionist answer questions about my business?
Yes — provided it has been given the right information.
An AI receptionist needs a reliable source of information about your business and clear instructions about what it should and shouldn't say.
That might include:
your opening hours
the services you provide
the areas you cover
frequently asked questions
what information to collect from new enquiries
how particular types of calls should be handled
when a caller needs a human response.
This is one reason the setup stage matters.
AI shouldn't simply guess when it doesn't know something.
A well-designed service should have clear boundaries around the information it can provide and what should happen when it can't confidently answer a question.
Does an AI receptionist sound like a real person?
Modern voice AI can sound considerably more natural than the automated telephone systems many of us are used to.
It can respond to spoken questions and carry on a conversation rather than simply playing a list of recorded options.
But it is still AI.
Businesses should think about the experience they want their callers to have rather than choosing AI simply because the technology exists.
For some straightforward enquiries, AI may be perfectly suited to the job.
For other conversations, a human receptionist may provide a better experience.
We explore those differences in our guide to AI receptionists vs human receptionists.
Can AI answer calls outside normal office hours?
One of the biggest potential advantages of AI telephone answering is availability.
AI systems don't need to finish work at 5:30pm, take annual leave or go home for the weekend.
That makes AI particularly interesting for businesses that receive enquiries outside their normal working hours.
Rather than automatically sending every evening or weekend caller to voicemail, an AI receptionist can potentially answer the call, collect information and make sure the enquiry is ready for your team to deal with when appropriate.
This doesn't mean every business needs 24/7 answering.
It simply gives businesses another option when deciding what should happen to calls outside their usual opening hours.
Our AI Telephone Answering Service page explains more about how this type of support can fit around a business.
Is AI answering the same as voicemail?
No.
Voicemail records a message after the caller has listened to a greeting.
AI answering can interact with the caller.
It can ask questions based on the conversation and collect specific information rather than relying entirely on the caller to decide what to include in a voicemail.
For example, if somebody says:
“I'm calling about getting a quote.”
An AI receptionist could potentially ask for their name, contact details and information relevant to the enquiry.
That can give the business a more useful message to work with.
Of course, not every missed call becomes a lost customer and voicemail still works perfectly well for many businesses.
We looked at this in more detail in our guide to what happens when your business misses a call.
Is AI answering suitable for every call?
No - and this is an important point.
There are situations where human judgement, empathy or flexibility may be more appropriate.
A complicated enquiry might move in an unexpected direction.
A caller might be distressed.
The conversation could involve sensitive circumstances.
Or somebody might simply want to speak to a person.
The question shouldn't be:
“Can we make AI answer this?”
A better question is:
“Should AI answer this?”
Businesses need to decide which calls are suitable for automation and where human involvement still matters.
What happens if the AI doesn't know the answer?
This should be decided when the service is set up.
A properly configured AI receptionist shouldn't invent information simply because a caller has asked a question it can't answer.
Depending on the setup, it could explain that it doesn't have that information, collect the caller's details and arrange for the appropriate person to respond.
The exact process will vary between systems.
What's important is having a clear fallback.
Before choosing any provider, it's worth asking what happens when the AI encounters something outside its knowledge or instructions.
That's one of several things we recommend considering in our guide to how to choose a telephone answering service.
AI vs human telephone answering: what's the difference?
Both approaches have the same broad objective: making sure somebody calling your business receives an appropriate response.
The way they achieve it is different.
AI answering
AI can be particularly useful for:
24/7 availability
repetitive or straightforward enquiries
collecting structured information
answering agreed frequently asked questions
providing additional cover outside office hours
handling calls consistently according to predefined instructions.
Human answering
Human receptionists can be particularly useful when:
conversations are complicated
callers need empathy or reassurance
enquiries are unpredictable
judgement is required
callers prefer human interaction
the conversation doesn't follow an obvious script.
Neither option is automatically better.
It depends on the business and, importantly, the type of call.
What about combining human and AI answering?
This is where things become particularly interesting.
A business doesn't necessarily have to choose between AI and humans.
A hybrid telephone answering service can combine the two.
For example, human receptionists could answer during normal working hours, while AI provides additional cover outside those hours.
Or AI might handle certain straightforward enquiries while people deal with calls that benefit from human judgement.
The exact arrangement will depend on the business.
Hybrid answering can be useful for organisations that want the personal touch of human call handling without limiting their answering capability entirely to staffed hours.
Our guide to what hybrid telephone answering is and how it works explains this approach in more detail.
Could AI answering work for a small business?
Potentially, yes.
You don't need to run a large call centre to have a problem with unanswered calls.
For a small business, the problem may simply be that the person who normally answers the telephone is also the person doing everything else.
You might be:
with a customer
driving between appointments
working on a job
in a meeting
away from your desk
already speaking to somebody else
finished for the day when a new enquiry arrives.
AI answering provides another possible way of dealing with those calls.
But that doesn't mean every small business should immediately replace its existing call handling with AI.
Think first about the calls you receive, what your customers expect and what you actually need the answering service to accomplish.
AI, human or hybrid - which should I choose?
Start with your callers rather than the technology.
Ask yourself:
What types of calls do we receive?
Are most enquiries straightforward or complicated?
Do callers often need reassurance or detailed discussion?
When are we currently missing calls?
Do we need help during office hours, outside office hours or both?
What information needs to be collected?
What should happen if the answering service can't deal with the enquiry?
Once you understand the problem you're trying to solve, choosing between AI, human and hybrid answering becomes much easier.
Our guide to choosing a telephone answering service covers the wider questions worth considering before selecting a provider.
AI telephone answering at That's My Call
At That's My Call, we've spent years answering business calls with real people.
We're now developing AI telephone answering alongside our existing human service, with the aim of giving businesses more choice over how and when their calls are handled.
For us, AI isn't about declaring that humans are no longer needed.
It's about using the right type of answering for the right type of call.
Some businesses may want traditional human answering.
Others may benefit from AI availability.
And some may find that a combination of the two works best.
That's why we're approaching AI answering as another option alongside our existing services rather than a replacement for everything that came before it.
The right answer isn't always AI
AI telephone answering technology is developing quickly, and it opens up some genuinely useful possibilities for businesses.
But the best telephone answering setup isn't necessarily the one using the most technology.
It's the one that works for your callers and your business.
Whether that's AI, human answering or a combination of both depends on what happens when your telephone rings — and what you want your customer to experience next.
If you're considering your options, get in touch with That's My Call and we can talk through the different ways your business calls could be handled.