The short version: it's software that answers your business phone like a great receptionist would — minus the hold music, the missed calls, and the closing time.
An AI receptionist (also called an AI answering service or AI phone agent) is software that answers your incoming calls automatically. It greets the caller, understands what they need using AI, and then handles it — answering a question, booking an appointment, taking a message, or transferring the call to the right person. It does this on every call, around the clock, without anyone picking up the phone.
The reason businesses are adopting them is simple: a missed call is usually a lost customer. Most people who can't get through don't leave a voicemail and don't call back — they call the next business on the list. An AI receptionist makes sure there's no such thing as a call that goes unanswered.
The exact behavior is up to you, but the common jobs are:
It's easy to lump these together, but they solve different problems:
At a high level: the AI receptionist answers the call, uses speech recognition to understand what the caller is saying, follows the call flow you've set up, and can look up or save information through integrations during the call — then books, routes, or takes a message and logs the result. We break the steps down in how an AI receptionist works.
Any business where the phone is the front door benefits most — especially when calls come in faster than the team can answer them, or outside business hours. Common examples include pharmacies, dental offices, medical clinics, home-services trades like HVAC and plumbing, salons and spas, and law firms.
That depends on what a missed call is worth to you. If a single new customer is worth a few hundred dollars or more, even a handful of missed calls a week adds up quickly — and an AI receptionist costs a fraction of staffing a phone 24/7. You can put real numbers on it with our missed-call revenue calculator.
Pricing models vary — you'll see per-minute, per-call, and monthly plans. We compare them in how much an AI receptionist costs. Queml itself uses transparent per-minute pricing with no contracts and every feature included.
You sign up with a provider, set up how calls should be handled, and point a phone number at it. With Queml you build the call flow in a no-code visual builder — or just describe what you want in plain English and the AI assistant builds it for you. Most setups take minutes, and you can hear it answer a real call right away.
An AI receptionist is software that answers your business phone calls automatically — greeting callers, answering common questions, booking appointments, taking messages, and routing calls to the right person — using AI to understand natural speech, 24 hours a day.
Yes. Modern AI receptionists use speech recognition so callers can talk naturally instead of pressing menu numbers. The caller states what they need, and the system understands the intent and responds or takes action.
It depends on how you use it. Many businesses use an AI receptionist to handle routine, repetitive, and after-hours calls so their team is freed up for in-person work and complex conversations, with the option to transfer to a person whenever needed.
Pricing varies by provider and model — some charge per minute, some per call, and some offer monthly plans. Queml uses transparent per-minute pricing with no contracts and every feature included.
You sign up with a provider, set up how calls should be handled (Queml uses a no-code visual builder or a plain-English AI assistant), and point a phone number at it. Most setups take minutes.
Set up Queml in minutes and hear it answer your first call.