An AI voice assistant answers the phone for you, understands what the caller wants and can give information, book an appointment or pass the call to a person. It works well on repetitive requests (opening hours, availability, bookings) and badly on complex or emotional ones. You must always say that an AI is answering, and recorded calls need a privacy notice.
I’m Toure Tia Kevin, a web developer in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. I don’t sell a voice AI service: this guide helps you decide whether you need one, based on suppliers’ public price lists and the text of the AI Act, checked in November 2026. Where I add my own opinion, I say so. On the rules, this is not legal advice.
How it works
An AI voice assistant combines three parts, often sold together by one platform:
- Speech recognition: turns what the caller says into text.
- Language model: understands the request and decides the reply, following the instructions you give it (hours, services, booking rules).
- Speech synthesis: reads the reply in an artificial voice.
Then comes the phone connection: a number (new, or your existing one forwarded) and, if needed, a link to your calendar or management software to write down appointments.
What it can and can’t do
| It can | Better not to leave to it |
|---|---|
| Answer out of hours and several calls at once | Complaints, angry customers |
| Give opening hours, address, basic information | Complex quotes or negotiations |
| Take a name, number and reason for the call | Emergencies and urgent cases |
| Book or move appointments, if linked to a calendar | Decisions that need judgement |
| Pass the call to a person | Anything without an exit to a person |
One practical limit, and this is my own view: speech recognition can get names, addresses and numbers wrong, especially with background noise, strong accents or dialect. I have no verified data on how a specific product performs in Italian: test it with your customers’ voices before switching it on, not with the seller’s recorded demo.
What it costs: orders of magnitude
Voice AI platforms are usually paid per minute of conversation, plus the phone number. Here are some public price lists checked in November 2026, in US dollars and excluding tax. They are examples, not buying advice:
| Platform | Listed cost |
|---|---|
| Retell AI | $0.07 to $0.31 per minute depending on model and voice; $10 starting credit |
| Vapi | $0.05 per minute hosting; with speech recognition, model and voice the example on its site reaches about $0.08-0.13 per minute; telephony extra |
| ElevenLabs (agents) | plans from $0 to $990 a month with minutes included (for example $99 a month for 1,238 minutes); extra minutes $0.08; language model and telephony billed separately |
A worked example of mine: 300 minutes of calls a month, at $0.07-0.31 per minute, comes to roughly $21-93 a month for the platform alone. On top come the number, telephony, and the configuration and testing work. I found no verifiable official prices for Italian lines, so ask for the full cost before deciding.
Transparency obligations
The AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) asks in Article 50 that AI systems interacting with people be designed so those people know they are talking to an AI, unless it is obvious. Article 50 has applied since 2 August 2026. A synthetic voice answering the phone isn’t obvious, so the prudent choice (my reading) is to say so at the start of the call: “Hello, I’m the virtual assistant of…”.
Two further cautions:
- If the voice imitates a real person (for example your own cloned voice), audio generated or altered with AI that resembles real people and sounds authentic is a deepfake and must be disclosed.
- Who carries the duty (the provider or whoever uses it) depends on the case: ask the supplier in writing. I covered this in the AI Act: what it asks of small businesses.
Privacy and call recording
If the assistant records or transcribes calls, you are handling personal data (voice, name, number, content). What to do, in line with the practical guides I consulted:
- Inform at the start of the call, before recording begins, and point to a full notice (GDPR Article 13) on your website.
- Choose and document the legal basis with your privacy consultant: it isn’t always consent.
- Record only what you need and decide how long to keep it.
- Check where the data goes: ask the supplier where its servers are and whether it uses conversations to train its models.
- Outbound promotional calls: for automated calls with no human operator, the Italian data protection authority (the Garante) requires prior consent (Article 130 of the Italian privacy code, according to the sources I read: check the current text).
When it pays off, when it doesn’t
My opinion, not data:
- It pays off if you lose calls out of hours or while you’re busy, if the requests are almost always the same and if a lost contact is worth more than the cost of the service.
- It doesn’t if customers call about delicate or complex cases, if you get very few calls or if the phone relationship is part of the value of your service.
A simple way to decide: for a week, log every call (reason, time, whether you answered). If most are repetitive or come when you can’t answer, a trial is worth it. Otherwise a good voicemail and a chatbot on your site may be enough. To see where AI makes sense in your business, there is the page on artificial intelligence for businesses and the guide to AI automation in Veneto.
Frequently asked questions
Can an AI voice assistant replace the switchboard?
For simple requests yes, for everything else no. Always provide a handover to a person, and test the system with real calls before switching it on.
Do I have to tell customers they’re talking to an AI?
Yes. It’s the prudent choice and, under Article 50 of the AI Act, a duty when it isn’t obvious. Say it in the first words of the call.
Can I record calls?
Yes, but you need a notice at the start of the call and a documented legal basis. Talk to your privacy consultant.
How much does it cost?
It depends on the minutes. The public price lists checked in November 2026 run from about $0.05 to $0.31 per minute for the platform, plus telephony and setup.
If you’d like to know whether a solution like this makes sense for your business, get in touch.
