AI agents: lifelike voice agents for your VICIdial calls

AI agents are lifelike voice agents that work inside your own VICIdial server. An outbound agent takes the calls your campaign dials: VICIdial dials as usual, and when a person answers, the agent talks to them, asks your questions, and hands the good ones to your closers. An inbound agent answers your numbers, helps the caller, takes messages, books appointments and puts people through to your team. Everything it does lands in VICIdial the way an agent’s work would: a status on the lead, answers in your lead fields, callbacks, do-not-call entries, and transfers into your in-groups.

What you need

• A VICIfast Voice account that is approved. AI agents talk over your VICIfast Voice trunk, so their minutes, numbers and caller ID work the way your calls already do.
• A server with the VICIfast Voice trunk on it. The new-agent dialog only offers servers that have it.
• For an outbound agent, a campaign. For an inbound agent, at least one number pointed at the server (My numbers).

Plans and prices

A plan sets how many AI calls can run at the same time across all your agents: 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 at once, for $49, $89, $199, $369 or $699 a month, paid from your wallet. Minutes are separate: 12¢ per AI minute, billed in 6-second steps, plus your usual VICIfast Voice minutes for the phone leg. AI minutes stop the moment a call is handed to your team.

• Upgrading gives you the extra lines at once; you pay the difference for the rest of the month.
• Downgrading takes effect at your next renewal. Nothing is refunded.
• Cancelling ends the plan when the month runs out. You can change your mind until then.
• If a renewal cannot be paid, your agents stop taking calls and send them to your team (the in-group you chose) until you top up and pay the plan from the Plan page. After 14 days unpaid the plan is cancelled.
• Test calls to your own verified phone are free, with or without a plan: 20 a day, up to 3 minutes each.

Build an agent

1. Open AI Agents under Trunks & DIDs and click New agent.
2. Choose whether it makes calls or answers them, pick its job (lead qualifier, appointment setter, receptionist or front desk), the server, and a name.
3. Your business: company name, the name the agent uses on calls, what you sell in a sentence or two, the questions it should ask, and facts it may use. It never promises anything that is not written here.
4. What it says first: for an outbound agent, the opening line it says after the person says hello (you can drop in lead fields like {first_name}); for an inbound agent, the greeting callers hear the moment it picks up. The greeting always includes that the call may be recorded.
5. Voice: pick one of ten Lifelike voices. Each plays sample calls at phone quality. Then pick a tone and a language (English, Spanish, or follow the caller).
6. Which calls: the campaign it takes calls from, or the numbers it answers; how many calls at once it may handle; and where calls go when it cannot take one.
7. What it can do: switch on the actions it may take (below).
8. Save, then Save and install. The agent is set up on your server but takes no calls yet.

What it can do

• Transfer to a person: puts the caller into one of your in-groups with a short summary saved on the lead, so your agent knows who is coming.
• Set the call outcome: every call ends with one of your statuses (you can change which status each outcome writes).
• Do-not-call requests: always on. When someone asks not to be called, the number goes on your do-not-call list straight away.
• Schedule callbacks: "call me tomorrow at 3" becomes a VICIdial callback at that time, for anyone in the campaign.
• Save answers to the lead: what the person says goes into the lead fields you choose, custom fields included.
• Book appointments: checks a calendar during the call, offers real open times, and books the one they pick. Each booking also becomes a VICIdial callback at that time.
• Notify your CRM: after each call, sends the outcome, the answers and a summary to your webhook as the ai_call.completed event (set it up under API, Webhooks).
• End the call: says goodbye and hangs up when the conversation is done.

Voicemail (outbound)

Answering machines are spotted by your campaign’s answering-machine detection before the agent joins. Choose Hang up (the lead stays in the campaign for the next try) or Leave a short message: the message is recorded once in the agent’s voice and VICIdial plays it after the beep, so leaving a voicemail costs no AI minutes. Because the same recording plays for every lead, lead fields cannot be used in it.

Test it, then go live

1. In section 7 of the agent’s page, Test and go live, add your phone number and click Call me with a code. Your server calls you and reads a 6-digit code twice; type it in and the number is verified. US and Canadian numbers only.
2. Click Call my phone. The agent calls you and behaves exactly as it will on a real call. Talk to it like a lead or a caller would. Test calls are free; the phone leg uses your normal Voice minutes.
3. For an outbound agent, confirm that the people in the campaign agreed to receive calls and voicemails from an AI voice. This is required for outbound AI calls in the US.
4. Click Go live. Outbound: VICIdial starts handing answered calls to the agent. Inbound: your numbers now reach the agent.

Pause stops it taking calls at any time: for an outbound agent VICIdial stops handing it answered calls, and an inbound agent’s callers go to the in-group you chose. Deleting an agent puts your numbers and campaign back the way they were.

Calls, recordings and calendars

• AI calls lists every call with its outcome and a two-line summary. Open one to read the transcript, see what it collected and what it did, and play the recording. Recordings are kept for 90 days.
• Each call is reviewed after it ends: a summary, the caller’s mood, and flags if something went wrong (for example, it talked over the person). The review is included in the per-minute price.
• AI calendars sets when appointments can be booked, how long they are and how many people a slot takes. Add the calendar’s feed address to Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar to see every booking there. Google Calendar, Microsoft 365 and GoHighLevel connections are coming soon.

Honest about being an AI

If anyone asks whether they are talking to an AI, the agent says yes. It tells callers that the call may be recorded, and it honours do-not-call requests on the spot.

When calls go to your team instead

• The agent is paused, not yet live, or the plan is unpaid.
• More calls arrived than the agent (or your plan) can take at once.
• The AI was briefly unavailable. Calls are never left ringing: they go to the in-group you chose under When the agent can’t take a call.