Blog
Guides and insights on AI voice agents, call centers, and calling at scale.
The Technology
AI Voice Agents
What Is an AI Voice Agent?
What an AI voice agent is, how it differs from earlier phone automation, what it does well, its limits, and the rules that apply.
How an AI Voice Agent Hears, Thinks, and Speaks: The Path of One Reply
A step-by-step look at what happens in the second between a caller speaking and an AI voice agent replying.
Speech Recognition: How Computers Understand Spoken Language
How speech recognition developed, how it works today, why it still gets things wrong, and how its accuracy is measured.
Text-to-Speech and Synthetic Voices: How Computers Learned to Talk
How text-to-speech works, how synthetic voices developed, and what to consider when choosing a voice for phone calls.
Voice Cloning: How It Works, and Why Consent Matters
How voice cloning works, its legitimate uses and risks, the laws catching up with it, and why consent is essential.
AI and Humans on the Same Call: Monitoring, Takeover, and Hand-Offs
How AI voice agents and people work together on calls, the monitoring tools involved, and what makes a good hand-off.
Telephony & Dialing
How Business Phone Systems Work: From Landlines to the Cloud
How business phone systems evolved from copper lines and PBX cabinets to the cloud, and the building blocks every setup relies on.
VoIP and SIP Explained in Plain Language
What VoIP and SIP are, how they work together to carry business calls, and what affects call quality and security.
What Is a Dialer? Preview, Progressive, and Predictive Dialing
The main dialing modes, their strengths and limits, the rules on abandoned calls, and how to choose the right mode.
IVR Menus: How Automated Phone Menus Work, and How to Design Good Ones
What IVR is, how touch-tone and speech menus work, and the design principles that separate helpful menus from frustrating ones.
Call Routing and ACD: How Calls Find the Right Person
How automatic call distribution works, the common routing strategies, and how queues, staffing and overflow fit together.
Why Business Calls Get Labeled "Spam Likely," and How Number Reputation Works
Who labels calls as spam, how numbers get flagged, and what responsible callers can do to protect their number's reputation.
STIR/SHAKEN and Caller ID Verification Explained
How STIR/SHAKEN verifies caller ID, what the three attestation levels mean, and what it means for businesses that make calls.
Answering Machine Detection and Voicemail Drops: How They Work
How answering machine detection and voicemail drops work, their limitations, and the rules that apply to them.
Call Recording and Transcription: How the Technology Works
How calls are recorded and transcribed, what recordings are used for, and the consent and security rules that come with them.