Next-gen AI voice agents to supercharge your contact center

An AI voice agent is software that holds a spoken phone conversation and completes the task the caller needs. It uses speech recognition to hear the caller, a large language model to decide what to say and do, and text-to-speech to reply. Unlike a phone menu, it understands natural speech, keeps context through the call, and can book an appointment, update a record, or transfer to a person. See the full AI voice agent definition.

Retell AI is an AI voice agent platform for contact centers. Teams use it to build, test, and deploy AI voice agents that answer inbound calls and place outbound calls, qualify leads, book appointments, and transfer to a human when needed. You can pilot it on real calls before rolling it out. As of November 2026, Retell AI runs at a $100M annualized revenue run rate, with 4,000+ customers and 100M+ calls a month. Read the announcement.

Retell AI voice agents cost $0.07 to $0.31 per minute, depending on the models, voice, and add-ons you choose. There is no annual contract and no per-resolution charge. Chat agents start at $0.002 per message. New accounts get $10 in free credits. Prices as of November 2026; see the pricing page to estimate your cost, or compare enterprise plans.

In an independent Cekura benchmark of six platforms, Retell AI scored the highest workflow accuracy at 95.7%, passing 22 of 23 evaluators in every repetition. Tell-1, Retell's own model, ranks #1 overall on the Retell vCX Benchmark (as of November 2026). The best AI voice agent for you still depends on the job. For production phone calls, compare platforms on four things: workflow accuracy on multi-step calls, latency under real network conditions, how much of the agent logic you control, and whether you can test on your own traffic before committing. See how Retell AI compares to other platforms, or run your own comparison with our free AI voice agent RFP template, which has 63 vendor questions and 22 pilot tests.

It answers inbound calls and places outbound ones, qualifies leads, books appointments, checks order status, and routes or transfers to a live agent when needed. Mid-call, it can pull and push data through your existing systems, so it acts on real customer information rather than reading from a script.

Retell AI is a conversational AI platform for phone calls, and every call runs through three steps in real time. The agent listens, with noise cancellation and turn-taking that knows when the caller has finished. It thinks, using the language model you choose, including Tell-1, Retell's own model built for contact center calls, which follows your instructions and calls your systems mid-call. It speaks, in a natural voice, and handles interruptions without waiting for a full pause. You set the instructions and workflows, test the agent in simulation, then deploy it on your phone numbers. For the full pipeline, see conversational AI architecture.

Yes. Retell AI gives you $10 in free credits at signup with full platform access and no contract, which covers building an agent, simulation testing, and live test calls, along with 20 free concurrent calls. After the credits run out you pay per minute with no commitment. See pricing and plans.

Sign up on the Retell dashboard and use the $10 in free credits to build your first agent. Teams without engineers build in the no-code conversation flow builder, and developers can create and manage agents through the API and SDKs. Add your knowledge base, connect your tools, run simulation tests, then attach a phone number. The documentation walks through each step.

You choose the model for each agent: Tell-1, Retell's own model, or models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other providers. Tell-1 costs $0.035 per minute and ranks #1 overall on the Retell vCX Benchmark (as of November 2026). To pick one, compare LLMs for voice agents.

Yes. Start on pay-as-you-go with $10 in free credits and no commitment, or run an enterprise pilot on real calls before you roll out. See enterprise plans.

Yes. Retell connects to any telephony system through SIP trunking, so you keep your existing phone number and carrier. Point the number at your AI voice agent to run an AI-powered answering service or AI IVR without changing infrastructure, or buy a new number by area code in the dashboard.

Retell AI integrates with CRMs, calendars, helpdesks, and telephony through native connectors and APIs. The agent reads customer context before and during the call and writes outcomes back automatically, so records stay current without manual entry.

Most people cannot tell on a short call. Voice quality comes down to three things: the underlying speech model, response latency, and how the agent handles interruptions. Retell AI agents handle mid-sentence interruptions and natural turn-taking rather than waiting for a full pause, and can transfer to a human mid-call when a conversation needs one. The fastest way to judge it is to hear one, so try the live demo.

No, using AI voice agents is legal in the United States, but it is regulated. Outbound calling requires prior consent under the TCPA, some states require disclosure that the caller is automated, and call recording consent rules vary by state. The FCC has ruled that AI-generated voices in robocalls fall under existing TCPA restrictions. Compliance depends on how the platform is used, not on the platform itself. State rules keep changing: California's AB 1609 takes effect January 1, 2027 and sets requirements for how large businesses connect customers to a human, covered in our AB 1609 explainer. Our Trust Center covers how Retell AI handles security and compliance.

Yes. An AI calling agent on Retell can run batch call campaigns from a list, inside the calling windows you set, with branded caller ID and verified numbers to reduce spam flags. Contacts who ask not to be called again are added to your do-not-call list automatically. Outbound calls still need the consent your jurisdiction requires.

The reliable AI voice agents for lead qualification are the ones that ask every qualifying question, record answers in the right CRM fields, and book or route the qualified lead without dropping the call. Test on your own call scripts, check that CRM fields update correctly, and confirm the agent hands off hot leads live. We compared the main options in our guide to the best AI voice agents for lead qualification.

Every call is transcribed and available for review, so you evaluate 100 percent of interactions instead of a manual sample. Transcripts and call data surface recurring issues, drop-off points, and coaching opportunities across your full call volume, not a handful of spot checks.

Yes. Retell AI is SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 certified, supports HIPAA workloads with a signed BAA, and supports GDPR. You can redact personal information from calls and transcripts, use SSO, and set role-based access by team. Security documentation is in the Trust Center.

Yes. Retell AI voice agents hold conversations in multiple languages, so you serve callers in their preferred language without staffing separate multilingual teams. Set one language per agent, or configure a multilingual agent and pick the languages it supports. The documentation lists the supported languages for each speech and voice provider.

Traditional IVR forces callers through fixed menus most people try to skip. An AI phone agent understands natural speech, lets the caller say what they need in their own words, resolves simple requests directly, and routes the rest without menu trees.

An AI call center uses AI phone agents to handle customer calls instead of routing every interaction to a person. The agent answers, understands what the caller wants, resolves routine requests, and escalates complex ones to a human with full context attached.

An AI call center runs every call through the same pipeline. Speech recognition turns the caller's words into text, a language model works out what they need and looks up their record in your CRM, and a synthesized voice replies. The platform connects to your existing phone system over SIP. After the call it logs the outcome, creates tickets, and triggers follow-ups. See contact center workflows you can automate.

An AI call center automates phone calls. An AI contact center covers every channel a customer uses, so the same AI agents handle voice calls, chat, and SMS with one view of each customer. Retell AI supports both: voice agents for inbound and outbound calls, plus chat and SMS agents that share contact memory, so a returning customer does not have to repeat themselves.

Shorter wait times, calls answered 24/7, lower cost per call, and capacity that scales with volume instead of headcount. Because the AI voice agent handles routine calls end to end, average handle time drops and your team spends its hours on higher-value conversations. See how teams run an AI call center on Retell AI.

No. AI phone agents handle repetitive, high-volume work like appointment booking, order status, and qualification, which frees your team for calls that need judgment or empathy. Most Retell AI deployments run a hybrid model: the voice agent takes the routine volume and hands off to a person when the conversation calls for it. Many teams add a CX automation engineer who owns the agents and keeps improving them.