Create your first assistant

An assistant is the AI receptionist that answers your calls. Each assistant has its own name, voice, language, instructions and phone numbers, so you can run one for your main line and another for a different location or brand. Setting one up takes a few minutes, and you can change everything later.

Two ways to start

The guided setup. When you first sign in, Set up your AI receptionist walks you through four short steps: Create assistant, Define behaviour, Get a number and Choose a plan. You pick a name, a language and a voice, describe your company (or enter your website so we can fill in your hours, services and FAQs), choose what the assistant may do, and optionally pick a phone number. You can press Skip for now on the last step and choose a plan later.

The assistant editor. Go to Assistants → Create assistant. This opens the full editor, where every setting is available. The rest of this article follows the editor.

Step 1: Essentials

The Essentials tab controls how the assistant introduces itself.

1. Under Identity, enter an Assistant name. This is the internal name shown in your dashboard, for example "Front desk".
2. Leave Status on Active — answering calls if you want it to answer as soon as it has a number.
3. In Introduces itself as, enter the name callers hear, for example "Marie".
4. Enter your Company name.
5. Under Language & voice, choose One language or Several languages. With one language, pick it from the list. With several, the assistant detects the caller's language and switches voice and greeting.
6. Pick a voice. Use the search box and the gender and accent filters to narrow the list, and press play to hear a sample.
7. Optionally adjust the Speech rate.
8. Under Welcome message, write the first sentence the caller hears. Keep it under two sentences, or leave it empty to use the default greeting.

Tip: Say who the caller reached and offer help in one breath, for example: "Hi, thanks for calling Bright Dental, this is Marie. How can I help you today?"

Step 2: Behaviour

The Behaviour tab tells the assistant about your business and how to act.

1. Under About the company, write the facts it may share: opening hours, services, prices, directions.
2. Under Instructions, describe the tone and the rules it should follow. A sensible default is already filled in. You can also pick a tone and press Generate from company profile, or start from one of the ready-made templates such as Friendly receptionist.
3. Under Business hours, switch on Use business hours if the assistant should behave differently when you are closed. Set Opens, Closes and the Days, then choose what happens Outside business hours: the assistant still answers with an After-hours message, or it plays a greeting and records a voicemail.

Short, clear instructions work best and respond faster. See Writing good instructions for examples.

Step 3: Knowledge

The Knowledge tab decides what the assistant may use besides its instructions.

• Use the company profile adds the hours, services, FAQs, staff and locations from the Company page to every call.
• Search the knowledge base lets it search your documents (PDFs, files, web pages and text) during calls and chats.
• Import from website reads every page of your site and writes short Website notes you can review and edit.
• Assistant-specific notes holds extra facts only this assistant should know.

Shared facts belong on the Company page and in the knowledge base, so every assistant can use them. See Knowledge base.

Step 4: Abilities

The Abilities tab lists what the assistant may do during a call. Switch on only what you need.

Answer questions and Take a message are on for a new assistant. For details on each one, see Assistant abilities.

Step 5: Save

Press Create assistant in the top right. You land back in the editor, where the other tabs become available: Call settings (conversation, turn taking, recording), Notifications (the call summary email), Website widget, Customer emails and Playground. Press Save changes whenever you edit something.

Note: If someone other than the workspace owner creates or changes an assistant, the owner gets an email about it.

What to do next

1. Test the assistant before real callers reach it. See Test your assistant before going live.
2. Give it a phone number. See Connect a phone number.

Your assistant answers calls once it has a number and something pays for the minutes: a plan, or prepaid credit. See Prepaid credit.

Managing assistants

On the Assistants page, open the menu at the end of a row to Edit, Pause or Activate, Duplicate, Archive or Delete an assistant.

• Duplicate makes a copy with "(copy)" added to the name, saved as a draft.
• Archive hides the assistant and unassigns its phone numbers. Tick Show archived to see archived assistants again.
• Delete removes the assistant for good. Its phone numbers are cancelled, and its calls, transcripts and recordings are deleted. This cannot be undone.

Common questions

How many assistants can I have? It depends on your plan: Starter includes 1, Solo 3, and Team and Scale have no limit. Archived assistants do not count. If you reach the limit, you see "Your plan includes … assistants. Upgrade to add more."

Why can I not delete an assistant? If it is on a call, you see a message asking you to try again when the call has finished.

Where do I set up call recording? Under Call settings → Recording. Recording is off for a new assistant. See Recording and consent.