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The AI Voice Agent is a conversational AI that answers your phone. It greets the caller, understands what they need, captures details, books appointments, and transfers to a human when appropriate. Available 24/7 and never sounds rushed. Configure the AI agent in /dashboard/communications/ under the AI Agent tab.

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What it can do

Answer and greet

Pick up calls and deliver your custom greeting in a natural voice.

Conversational handling

Multi-turn dialogue — handles “Hi, I have a question about pricing” without forcing a menu.

Intent routing

Identifies sales / support / billing / general intents and routes accordingly.

Capture caller details

Name, company, email, reason for calling — all logged to your CRM.

Book meetings

Connects to Calendar — books a slot during the call.

Transfer to human

Hands off to a ring group, queue, or specific extension when needed.

Voicemail intelligence

If you go to voicemail, the agent reads the caller’s intent, summarizes, and tags urgency.

Multi-language

Configurable per language — English, Spanish, French, German, and more.

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How it differs from an IVR

IVRAI Voice Agent
Press 1 for sales”Hi, can I ask what you’re calling about?”
Static menusDynamic conversation
Caller adapts to systemSystem adapts to caller
Limited to digit inputFree-form speech
Bad after 5+ optionsHandles open-ended needs
You can use both: the AI agent on your main number, with an IVR fallback after-hours; or an IVR up front with the AI agent as one of the menu options.

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Set up the AI agent

1

Pick a voice persona

Multiple voice options — male/female, US/UK/AU accents, neutral or warm tone. Preview each one before picking.
2

Write the greeting

Short and friendly. “Hi, thanks for calling Acme. How can I help you today?”
3

Define intents

The categories of caller need you want to recognize and handle differently. Sales, support, billing, partnerships, careers — whatever your business has.
4

Map intent → action

For each intent, pick what the agent does — book a meeting, capture details and email a rep, transfer to a ring group, or handle inline with a knowledge-base lookup.
5

Set escalation rules

When does the agent transfer to a human? “After 3 failed attempts to capture email”, “If the caller says ‘manager’”, “If the caller is upset”. Hiveku ships sensible defaults.
6

Point a DID at the agent

From the Numbers tab, route a DID to the AI agent.
7

Test from your own phone

Call in, run through your common scenarios, refine the prompts.

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Voice personas

Each persona is a combination of TTS voice + speaking style. Hiveku previews all options inline so you can hear them before choosing.
Pick a voice that matches your brand. Casual D2C might pair well with a warmer, friendlier voice; B2B enterprise often calls for measured and professional. Don’t over-think it — most customers don’t notice the specific voice, but they do notice if it sounds robotic.

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Knowledge base

Upload your FAQ, pricing page, product specs, support docs, or paste in URLs. The agent can answer factual questions inline without transferring. 
Q: "What are your hours?"
→ Agent answers from KB: "We're open Monday through Friday, 9 to 6 Eastern."

Q: "How much does the Pro plan cost?"
→ Agent answers from KB: "The Pro plan is $79 per month, billed annually."
The KB is read during conversation; the agent cites the source page in the call transcript so you can audit accuracy.

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Booking a meeting on the call

If the caller wants a demo or consultation, the agent can offer slots from your Calendar and book directly: 
Agent: "I can grab time on Sarah's calendar for a demo. Would tomorrow at 2 PM Eastern work?"
Caller: "Yes."
Agent: "Great. What's the best email to send the calendar invite to?"
Caller: "alex@example.com"
Agent: "Booked. You'll get a confirmation in a moment. Anything else?"
The booking lands on the right host’s calendar with all the right details, including the call transcript attached as context.

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Transfer to human

The agent transfers when:
  • The caller asks (“Can I talk to a person?”)
  • The caller is detected as upset or frustrated
  • The agent fails to make progress on the intent (e.g., 3 reprompts on email)
  • The caller’s intent doesn’t match any configured handler
  • A configured “always transfer” intent is detected (e.g., “billing dispute”)
Transfers can route to a ring group, a queue, or a specific extension. The destination agent gets a brief summary of the AI conversation so far so they don’t start from zero.

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Transcripts and review

Every call with the AI agent is transcribed and stored on the call record under /dashboard/communications/calls/. You can:
  • Listen to the audio
  • Read the full transcript
  • See the detected intent and confidence
  • See which knowledge base entries were referenced
  • Mark the call as “good” or “bad” — Hiveku uses these labels to flag patterns to refine
Spend 30 minutes a week reviewing flagged calls in the first month after launch. The biggest improvements come from spotting cases where the agent gave a vague answer or escalated when it shouldn’t have.

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Cost

The AI agent uses LLM tokens (for understanding and response) and TTS/STT (for speech). Usage shows up in your billing dashboard. A typical 3-minute conversation costs roughly the same as a few sales emails. See Monitor Usage.

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API

# Update agent configuration
curl -X PATCH https://api.hiveku.com/api/communications/ai-agent \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hk_live_xxx" \
  -d '{
    "greeting": "Hi, thanks for calling Acme. How can I help?",
    "voice_persona": "warm-female-us",
    "knowledge_base_ids": ["kb_pricing", "kb_faq"],
    "transfer_destination": "ring_group:sales"
  }'

# List recent AI agent calls
curl "https://api.hiveku.com/api/communications/calls?handled_by=ai_agent&limit=50" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hk_live_xxx"

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Troubleshooting

Try a different voice persona — there’s a wide quality range. Also keep prompts short; long agent responses sound more synthetic.
Make sure the escalation rules include “if caller asks for a person” and that the transfer destination is configured. Test the escape hatch yourself.
Check the call transcript for the cited KB source. If the source was wrong, update the KB. If the source was right but the agent paraphrased badly, add a more direct phrasing to the KB entry.
The agent uses voice-activity detection — if there’s significant background noise on the caller’s end, it may interrupt prematurely. Adjust the noise sensitivity in advanced settings.

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Next steps

Set up the AI receptionist

End-to-end walkthrough.

Sales AI Co-pilot

The text-side counterpart that drafts emails and surfaces follow-ups.