Telling callers they are talking to an AI, and why it helps
Some businesses ask us whether the agent can skip the part where it says it is an AI. The voices are good enough now that many callers would not notice for a while. Our answer is no, and not only because we think the law is heading that way. A caller who finds out halfway through is a caller you have lost. This post is about why the disclosure helps, and how to word it so that it costs you two seconds and nothing else.
The two seconds
A greeting with the disclosure sounds like this: "Hello, you've reached the clinic. I'm an AI assistant and I can book, move or cancel appointments. How can I help?" Without it, the greeting is one sentence shorter. That is the whole cost.
What you get for the two seconds is a caller who knows the rules. People talk differently to a machine, and that is useful: they speak a little more clearly, they say their phone number in groups of two, they do not tell it about their weekend. They also know what to do if it goes wrong, which is to ask for a person.
Why it is good manners
Imagine finding out ten minutes into a call that the sympathetic voice on the other end was software. Most people feel tricked, even if the software did a good job. That feeling attaches to your business, not to the technology.
The reverse is also true. A caller who was told up front and got a good result tends to be impressed: "I booked with a robot and it worked." That is a story people tell. "I was fooled by a robot" is a different story, and it gets told more often.
There is a quieter reason too. Some callers are in a hurry, some are upset, some have a hearing problem. Telling them what they are dealing with lets them choose how to deal with it. Taking that choice away is what makes the deception rude.
What the law is starting to expect
Two European principles matter here, and we describe them only in general terms; the details are for your adviser.
The GDPR asks that personal data be handled fairly and transparently, and that people are not kept in the dark about automated processing that concerns them. A phone agent that takes a booking and writes a summary is handling personal data, so callers should not be surprised by it. Our GDPR checklist for AI phone calls puts this next to the other principles.
The EU's AI Act adds a more direct expectation: when a person interacts with an AI system, they should be told, unless it is obvious from the context. A phone call with a good voice is not obvious. When the duty applies to your set-up, and what counts as telling, is a question to settle with your adviser, but the direction of travel is plain: disclosure is becoming the norm.
Some countries also have consumer rules about automated calls, especially outbound ones. If the agent will ring people rather than answer them, ask about those separately.
How to say it
The words matter more than the rule. A disclosure that sounds like a warning label makes callers hang up; one that sounds like a receptionist makes them carry on. Some patterns that work:
- Say it in the second sentence, after the business name. "You've reached the workshop. I'm an AI assistant."
- Follow it at once with what it can do. A capability is more reassuring than an apology.
- Do not apologise for being an AI. "Unfortunately you've reached an automated system" tells the caller to expect the worst.
- Say it in the caller's language, and again if the caller switches language mid-call.
- Offer the person in the same breath if your callers are likely to want one: "I can book you in, or put you through to a colleague."
Then write down what happens when someone asks "are you a real person?" in the middle of the call. The honest answer is one line, and it should be followed by the same offer. Our guide to writing instructions for a phone agent has more lines like it.
What happens next
A few callers will hang up when they hear it. Count them; on most lines it is a small number, and they were the callers who would have hung up on hold anyway. A few will test the agent with jokes. Let it answer briefly and steer back. Most will simply get on with it, because they rang to book a time, not to have a conversation.
Keep a way to a human open for the whole call, not only at the start. The disclosure creates an expectation that there is somebody behind the machine, and the transfer, the callback or the message is how you keep the promise.
Where NordTell fits
Every NordTell agent says it is an AI in its greeting, and you write the rest of the words yourself. The agent always keeps a way to a person: a warm transfer, a callback or a message. Whether your greeting meets the rules that apply to your business is for you and your adviser to decide; the setting is there so the decision is easy to carry out.
How agents are set up · Call recording and consent in Europe