The AI Phone System answers your incoming calls with a voice agent that can quote pricing, check live availability, take bookings, send booking links by text, and hand the call to a staff member when a human is needed. Each location gets its own phone number and its own agent settings, and you can point several locations at a single shared number.
You configure the phone agent from the Agents hub (choose a location, then open the phone channel). Setting up or changing a number requires a connected Stripe account, since phone numbers are billed through your account.
Getting a phone number
Before the agent can take calls, the location needs a phone number. From the phone channel, open Get a number and search Twilio's inventory:
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| Country | Pick the country for the number. Supported countries are United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Ireland. |
| Area code | Enter the leading local digits (for example 415 for San Francisco, 2 for Sydney, 20 for London). |
| Search | Shows available numbers with their locality and capabilities (Voice, SMS). |
| Get | Provisions the number and assigns it to the current location. |
Once a number is assigned, the phone channel shows it in a highlighted chip and calls to it are answered by the AI agent. The number's voice and SMS capabilities are saved with it, so a voice-only number can fall back to a shared country sender for outbound texts.
A location can hold only one number at a time. If a location already has a number, the system refuses to overwrite it (that would leak the old number and keep billing you for it). Release the existing number first, then get a new one.
Sharing a number across locations
If you run several locations that should answer on the same line, you do not need a separate number for each. From a location that has no number yet, use the share flow to point it at a number already owned by another of your locations.
- Both locations then answer on the same number, each using its own agent settings.
- The number must already belong to one of your own locations. You cannot attach a number owned by a different account.
- Unshare removes a location from a shared number. This only detaches that location. The number itself stays active (and billable) as long as at least one location still points at it.
- Release fully returns the number to Twilio and stops billing. Use this only when no location needs the number anymore.
Voice agent settings
Open the agent settings to control how the assistant sounds and behaves. Turn the agent on or off with the On / Off toggle at the top of the phone channel; turning it off pauses call handling without giving up the number.
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Assistant name | The name the assistant uses to introduce itself on calls. |
| Welcome greeting | The opening line callers hear. |
| Personality and instructions | Tone and behavior guidance for the assistant. |
| Additional business context | Free-text notes about your business the agent can rely on. |
| Transfer message | What the caller hears just before the call is handed to a person. |
| Voice | The speaking voice (see below). |
| Max call duration | A selectable cap on call length (for example 3, 5, 10, or 15 minutes). |
| Minimum booking notice | Hours of advance notice required before a rental can start. 0 allows same-day bookings. Set to 24 or more to stop the agent from taking last-minute bookings; it will offer the soonest valid time instead. |
| Hold music | The track callers hear while the agent rings your team. |
| Text booking links to callers | Lets the agent send a booking link by SMS during the call. |
| Text missed callers who have a booking | Sends a follow-up text to a caller who hangs up in silence but already has a booking, so they can reply. |
| Save call transcripts | Keeps a written transcript of each call for review. |
Choosing a voice
The assistant's voice is powered by ElevenLabs. Use the Accent and Gender filters to narrow the list, pick a voice, and press the play button to hear a short preview. You can also paste any ElevenLabs voice ID directly into the field.
Any ElevenLabs voice works on live calls. Some premium library voices cannot be previewed in-app on your plan (the preview shows a note when that happens), but they still work on calls. If you never pick a voice, the agent uses a sensible default that matches the country of the number, so an Australian or UK number does not answer in an American accent.
Staff handoff
When the agent decides a human is needed, it hands the call to staff based on the ring order and schedule you set on the Staff and schedule tab. It rings only staff who are on shift, in priority order, each with their own ring timeout. It plays your chosen hold music while ringing.
Where the agent's knowledge comes from
The agent only answers with information it actually has. It never guesses hours, prices, or policies. Its knowledge comes from these sources:
| Source | How it works |
|---|---|
| Website knowledge | Add a website URL and the agent indexes the page's headings, paragraphs, lists, and tables (up to about 8,000 characters). The site is re-scraped automatically once a day, and you can force an immediate refresh with Scrape Now. The settings panel shows when it was last scraped and lets you view the indexed content. |
| Additional business context | Anything you type into the business context field is available to the agent on every call. |
| Knowledge bases | Select which knowledge bases the agent may draw on. If you select none, it uses this location's knowledge bases plus any shared ones. Knowledge bases are created and managed on the Agents page. |
| Live lookups | For availability, pricing, business details, and existing bookings, the agent calls your live data in real time rather than relying on cached text, so quotes and open times are current. |
For the best answers, keep your website URL current and let the daily scrape run, put anything not on your website (such as seasonal policies or holiday hours) into the additional business context or a knowledge base, and review saved transcripts periodically to spot questions the agent could not answer.
Reviewing calls
The phone channel lists live and recent calls. Live calls show an in-progress indicator and a running transcript; completed calls show a short AI summary, the outcome, and the full transcript when transcripts are enabled. Call statistics at the top show total calls handled, calls today, the share resolved by the AI, and how many were transferred to staff.
Cannot get a number -- Getting or changing a number requires a connected Stripe account for the location. Connect Stripe first, then try again.
"Location already has a phone number" -- Each location holds one number. Release the current number before getting a new one.
Agent answers but does not know a price or policy -- The agent only states facts it has. Add the detail to your website (then scrape), to the additional business context, or to a knowledge base.
Number rings but never hands off to staff -- The agent only rings staff who are on shift. Check the ring order and schedule on the Staff and schedule tab.