How to choose an AI voice agent: a 12-point checklist
Twelve questions that separate a production-grade AI voice agent from a slick demo — languages, model choice, cost transparency, actions and more.
Demos are easy; production is hard. Run every vendor through this checklist before you commit.
The checklist
- Languages: does it sound truly native — pronunciation, accents, code-switching — not just accented English?
- Model choice: can you pick and swap the STT, LLM and TTS per agent, with no lock-in?
- Cost: is the all-in per-minute cost transparent and shown before launch?
- Actions: does it call your APIs and take action mid-call, or just talk?
- Orchestration: pre-call context, variable mapping, and runtime decisions on which API to call?
- Follow-ups: automatic retries, reschedules and multi-touch cadences?
- Campaigns: a real bulk auto-dialer with timezone awareness and DNC suppression?
- Telephony: does it fit your existing carrier, or force a rip-and-replace?
- Observability: transcripts, recordings, sentiment and after-call analysis?
- Security: RBAC, audit logs, PII redaction, retention controls?
- White-label: can partners resell under their own brand?
- Latency and testing: sub-second responses and a way to test before you go live?
We go deeper on each in the Callaro buyer's guide, and the fundamentals live in the complete guide to AI voice agents. When you're ready, book a demo.
Written by Callaro Team
The team building Callaro — outcome-driven AI voice agents for teams that live on the phone.
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