# Phone agent

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/phone-agent

> A phone agent is a voice-driven AI assistant that handles inbound or outbound phone calls — replacing or augmenting traditional IVR / call center workflows in 2026.

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A phone agent is a voice-driven AI assistant that handles inbound or outbound phone calls — replacing or augmenting traditional IVR / call center workflows in 2026.

Phone agents handle real-world telephony: inbound customer support, outbound sales, appointment scheduling, surveys, reminders. Built on [[voice-agent-platform]] infrastructure: a Twilio / Vonage phone number routes to a voice agent pipeline (STT → LLM → TTS) with knowledge base + tool calling. Production challenges: PSTN audio quality (8kHz, noisy), latency budget (sub-600ms round-trip or callers hang up), interrupt handling, transfer-to-human escalation, compliance (call recording disclosure, TCPA for outbound). 2026 leaders: Vapi, Retell, Bland, Synthflow. The category is replacing IVR + low-tier human agents at scale; high-empathy work still requires humans.

## When to use

- Repetitive inbound: scheduling, FAQs, basic support.
- Outbound: appointment reminders, surveys, qualification.

## Common mistakes

- Pretending to be human — disclose AI status; users notice and trust collapses when they find out later.
- Forgetting TCPA / GDPR / regional compliance for outbound calling.

## Related terms

- [voice-agent-platform](https://promtable.com/glossary/voice-agent-platform)
- [interrupt-handling](https://promtable.com/glossary/interrupt-handling)
- [barge-in](https://promtable.com/glossary/barge-in)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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Original page: https://promtable.com/glossary/phone-agent
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