What an AI Voice Bot Does in an Outbound Call Center
Most outbound calls open the same way: dial, wait, reach a voicemail greeting or a wrong number, then ask the same few qualifying questions. An AI voice bot takes over that first-contact work. In the fronter-and-closer model it plays the fronter: it takes the answered call, checks that a person is on the line, asks your questions and hands the qualified leads to a closer, who does the selling.
VoiceOI is built for outbound calling. It doesn't answer inbound calls or work as a receptionist, and selling stays with your closers. A bot handles one call at a time, so you add bots to run more calls at once.
How an AI Voice Bot Call Works, Step by Step
- The call goes out.VICIdial dials your campaign and passes answered calls to a bot logged in as a remote agent. Without VICIdial, VoiceOI's built-in dialer calls your CSV lead list through your SIP carrier, inside the calling windows and retry rules you set.
- Machines are screened out. When answering machine detection finds a machine, the bot ends the call and moves on.
- The bot opens. It speaks your opening line in the voice you picked. If you switch it on, the bot also plays your AI-voice disclosure.
- It asks your questions. Speech recognition turns each answer into text. A recorded-voice bot follows the branch for that answer; an AI agent writes its reply with a language model inside your limits. In testing, a turn takes about a second.
- Qualified leads go to a closer.When your transfer rule is met, the live call is handed over SIP to the closer your routing rules pick. Leads who don't qualify aren't transferred, and the call ends.
- The outcome is logged. Calls are logged with dispositions, which are written back to VICIdial on VICIdial campaigns, and recordings and transcripts are available in your dashboard for review.
Two Bot Types: Recorded-Voice Bots and AI Agents
Every VoiceOI bot is one of two types. Choose per campaign, by how much freedom the conversation needs.
| Aspect | Recorded-voice bot | AI agent |
|---|---|---|
| How it talks | Plays real or pre-generated voice lines from a branching script, so it says exactly what you recorded | Writes each reply with a language model, inside the limits you set |
| What you set up | Every line, and the branch each answer takes | A persona, openings, qualification questions, a knowledge base, forbidden rules and exits |
| Good fit for | Fixed scripts, and wording your compliance team has approved | Calls where leads ask questions and the answers vary |
Bot classes on the price list
Bots are also sold by class, which sets the bot's job on the call:
| Bot class | Job on the call | Question flow | Live transfer | List price from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fronter | First contact: a few qualifying questions, then the handoff | Max 3 questions or max 5 questions | Yes | $25 per bot per month |
| Closer | Longer question flows, with complex branching on the Ultimate tiers, then the handoff | Up to 12 questions or extended question flow | Yes | $100 per bot per month |
| LG (generative AI) | Freer conversations that collect lead details | Flexible question flow | No | $50 per bot per month |
Within the fronter class, the Good Fronter tiers verify age and ZIP and leave comments for the closer; among LG bots, the Pro LG tiers add the Google Sheets export. Each class has its own page: the AI fronter for call centers, the AI closer agent and the LG agent for outbound lead generation.
Build and Test Bots Without Developers
Your operations team builds each bot in the no-code AI voice agent builder: the opening, every question, the branch each answer takes, and the transfer or polite close. Before a bot calls a real lead, you run test calls in the simulator and hear how the flow sounds.
- Start from a template in the template marketplace, or draft a script from the transcript of a call that went well.
- Pick a voice from a library of more than 200, including cloned voices.
- Speech recognition runs on the Standard Voice Engine (included at no extra cost) or, for longer conversations, on the Advanced Voice Engine (2 workers free (then $15 per worker)).
- Set schedules, retries and timezone calling windows for each campaign in the campaign manager.
Works With Your Dialer: VICIdial Remote Agents or SIP
Bots fit the dialer setup you already run, or work without one.
Inside VICIdial
Bots log in to VICIdial as remote agents. You provision them in bulk and assign them to campaigns, and VICIdial keeps running your campaigns, lists and reports. Each call's outcome is written back as a disposition, so bot calls show up in your VICIdial reports.
More on the VICIdial AI voice bot and the VICIdial AI integration setup.
Over your SIP carrier
No VICIdial? The built-in dialer runs bot campaigns by itself: upload a CSV lead list, filter it by state, area code or ZIP, set the pacing and follow calls in a realtime view. To add a carrier, paste its sip.conf or pjsip.conf block into the Carrier Manager.
See SIP trunk for AI voice agents, the Twilio SIP trunk and Telnyx SIP trunk guides, and the Asterisk AI voice bot for FreePBX setups.
VoiceOI isn't a predictive, power or parallel dialer for pacing human reps. If your agents need one, keep VICIdial for them and let bots take the first-contact calls. For bots that place their own calls, see the AI auto dialer.
Answering Machine Detection and Do-Not-Call Requests
A bot shouldn't pitch to a voicemail greeting, and a closer shouldn't receive one. With answering machine detection, VoiceOI checks each call against machine phrase lists; when it detects a machine, the call ends and is logged as AM. Bots don't leave voicemail messages.
Spoken do-not-call requests are handled the same way: when a lead asks not to be called again, the call ends. Machine and do-not-call phrase lists belong to your organization, so you can edit, import and export them, which helps BPOs that run campaigns for several clients. See do-not-call (DNC) controls.
Live Transfer to Your Human Closers
When a lead qualifies, the bot hands the live call to a human closer over SIP, and closer routing rules decide who takes it. The bot's part of the call ends at the handoff; your closer carries the conversation from there.
On the Good Fronter tiers (from $35per bot per month at list price), AI-written notes go to the closer with the call, so the closer has the lead's answers in hand.
Fronter and closer bots live-transfer. LG bots don't: they hold freer conversations and, on the Pro LG tiers, write each call's answers to a Google Sheet so your team can call back. The AI live transfer guide walks through the whole flow.
Compliance Controls for AI Voice Calls
Since the FCC's February 2024 ruling, AI-generated voices count as “artificial” voices under the TCPA, so telemarketing calls that use them need prior express written consent from the person called. Getting that consent stays your responsibility. VoiceOI gives you the controls:
- An optional TCPA AI-voice disclosure
- Do-not-call phrase handling that ends the call
- Timezone calling windows, so bots dial only inside the hours you set for each lead's timezone
- Call recordings and transcripts for review
These controls support your compliance program but don't replace it, and nothing on this page is legal advice. For the details, see TCPA controls for outbound calling.
Call Data: Dispositions, Recordings, Transcripts and Google Sheets
Calls are logged with dispositions, and on VICIdial campaigns those dispositions are written back to VICIdial. Call logs, recordings and transcripts are available in the VoiceOI dashboard, so a supervisor can check what a bot said and how the lead answered.
The Google Sheets integrationadds a script step that appends one row per call with the data the bot captured; it's included on the Pro LGtiers. It writes to a sheet and doesn't import leads from one: leads come from a CSV upload or your VICIdial lists.
There's no CRM sync yet. CRM integrations are coming soon.
Outbound Call Center Use Cases
VoiceOI bots take the first call on outbound campaigns like these:
Final expense insurance
Screen leads on your rules, including age and ZIP checks on the Good Fronter tiers, then transfer them to your licensed agents, who quote and sell.
Solar
Qualify homeowners on ownership, the electric bill, roof age and shade, then live-transfer them so your closer sets the appointment.
Insurance sales
Work new and aged leads and re-engagement lists, and pass interested prospects to licensed agents on a live transfer.
Debt collection
Recorded-voice bots read wording your compliance team approved and transfer people who want to talk to a collector. FDCPA and Regulation F duties stay with your agency.
Telemarketing and sales calls
Run consented outbound sales campaigns on a script you control, with your closers on the other end of each transfer.
BPOs running client campaigns
Keep each client in its own organization, with per-bot costs you can budget client by client.
Real estate
Follow up with consented buyer and seller leads, and transfer the interested ones to an agent.
Appointment setting
The bot qualifies, and the person who takes the transfer books the appointment. VoiceOI doesn't book calendars itself.
AI Voice Bot Pricing: Prepaid Per Bot
VoiceOI bills prepaid per bot. A bot is one concurrent call slot, so ten bots can be on ten calls at the same moment. List prices run from $25 to $155 per bot per month, depending on the bot class and on whether the bot connects through VICIdial/Asterisk or hosted SIP. Volume discounts go up to 60%, and every tier has a floor price that discounts don't go below.
Speech recognition, voices and the language model run on VoiceOI's own infrastructure by default, and there's no per-minute AI fee. Your carrier still bills the call minutes.
| Aspect | VoiceOI, per bot | Per-minute AI platforms |
|---|---|---|
| You pay for | Each bot, prepaid monthly | Each minute of AI conversation |
| Per-minute AI fee | None | Charged on every minute |
| Your bill grows with | How many calls you run at once | Total talk time across your calls |
Every tier and discount is on the VoiceOI pricing page. For published per-minute rates from other platforms, see AI voice agent pricing compared.
What VoiceOI Doesn't Do
VoiceOI is outbound calling software. It doesn't:
- Answer inbound calls, act as a receptionist or route incoming callers
- Sync with a CRM yet (CRM integrations are coming soon) or offer a public API
- Book calendar appointments or send text messages
- Leave voicemail messages
- Hold conversations in languages other than English
- Pace human reps as a predictive, power or parallel dialer
- Take payments over the phone
- Handle protected health information: VoiceOI makes no HIPAA compliance claim
How the Platform Is Built: Dashboard, Bot Nodes, Telephony
- Dashboard.Build scripts, run campaigns, manage lead lists, and review call logs, dispositions, recordings and transcripts. Multi-tenant organizations keep each client's work separate.
- Bot nodes. These run the calls. Capacity grows as bot nodes are added, at one concurrent call per bot.
- Telephony. Everything connects over SIP: VICIdial remote agents, Asterisk or FreePBX, or your SIP carrier, including Twilio and Telnyx SIP trunks.
VoiceOI is built and maintained by Saifullah Shaukat and the team at Gixiai in Islamabad, Pakistan. Read more about VoiceOI.