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Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

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Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#31

Post by Buttons840 »

esseph wrote: post #22
matt-p wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say answering a phone is 11/hour and laying bricks is 11.20/hour. No big shock that people will take the phone job, but if you remove that option more people will flow into the laying bricks job.

Except that's not reality, because the wage for most bricklayers in the US is $10-12 higher than the call center job. A byproduct is the drop in wages in the bricklayer job, as the call center workers that were fired are now fighting for the bricklayer jobs.

Also, let's not forget an underlying pillar of society; real-estate must never decrease in value. That doesn't really fit with the theory that we're going to build a lot of real-estate.

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#32

Post by mmasu »

48terry wrote: post #29
mmasu wrote: post #27

we tried to build something similar lately for outbound calls (for simple reminders to partners) and faced massive issues using gpt-4o-realtime-audio. Noise detection, turn detection, random telephony issues (we were using Twilio too), prompt not holding together, and more. We dropped the project because it would have resulted in a terrible experience for the person on the other side of the phone. Building these thin…

I've read this comment twice and I genuinely can't understand it. Uh, so your own attempt at a similar project didn't work and was a terrible experience and the fundamentals of the system are specific and still require babysitting. But it's inevitable (???) that it'll get better... and this improvement only MIGHT make things better for people, only some of the time? I'm not alone in being unimpressed by this, right?…

what I mean is: building these systems is nontrivial, but if done well it can help. Imagine non being in an endless queue on a phone call when having to do a simple task through a customer center call, or having a phone reminder with more information and less noise than from a written notification. The fact that I failed at it (for lack of experience and resources) does not mean it should just be shrugged off as useless or impractical. Some companies offer this service and it works just fine for narrow use cases.

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#33

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

Macha wrote: post #25

Personally, it's hard to see outbound calls generated by AI as anything other than robocall spam.

I would like to use AI to talk to those spammers/scammers. When the adversary is using AI why shouldn't we to defend from it.

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#35

Post by matt-p »

esseph wrote: post #22
matt-p wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say answering a phone is 11/hour and laying bricks is 11.20/hour. No big shock that people will take the phone job, but if you remove that option more people will flow into the laying bricks job.

Except that's not reality, because the wage for most bricklayers in the US is $10-12 higher than the call center job. A byproduct is the drop in wages in the bricklayer job, as the call center workers that were fired are now fighting for the bricklayer jobs.

The difference is nowhere near as stark in the UK, and for society a reduction in the cost of building houses or infrastructure is good.

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#36

Post by sagarkava »

Macha wrote: post #25

Personally, it's hard to see outbound calls generated by AI as anything other than robocall spam.

Valid concern. That’s why we focused on responsible use cases such as appointment bots, IVRs, or call reminders, not spam. Our project is open-source, modular, and designed for ethical, contextual automation.

GitHub: https://github.com/videosdk-live/agents

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#37

Post by sagarkava »

TZubiri wrote: post #26
Macha wrote: post #25

Personally, it's hard to see outbound calls generated by AI as anything other than robocall spam.

I did some freelancing around LLMs for startups and I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to reject "great ideas" that were just about spamming people. Almost had a big red sign "no outbound!"

Completely agree. Our goal is to enable smart automation for legitimate, helpful use cases, not intrusive marketing. We also built in Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) support so humans can intervene any time. Docs on HITL: https://docs.videosdk.live/ai_agents/human-in-the-loop GitHub: https://github.com/videosdk-live/agents

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#38

Post by sagarkava »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #33
Macha wrote: post #25

Personally, it's hard to see outbound calls generated by AI as anything other than robocall spam.

I would like to use AI to talk to those spammers/scammers. When the adversary is using AI why shouldn't we to defend from it.

You absolutely can. Our framework can answer calls, run speech-to-text, analyze intent, and respond with LLMs, making it a great defensive tool against spam or scam calls.

GitHub: https://github.com/videosdk-live/agents

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#39

Post by sagarkava »

gerdesj wrote: post #23
sagarkava wrote: post #2

Hi I am Sagar, We just open-sourced a complete framework to build an AI-powered telephony agent that can handle both inbound and outbound calls—using Python, SIP, and cloud LLMs like OpenAI or Gemini. You can use it to create smart appointment bots, voice feedback collectors, or even enterprise IVR systems. It’s modular (plug in your SIP provider or AI model), production-ready, and extensible for real-time workflows.…

I'm still getting to grips with all this AI stuff but I do know SIP n RTP rather well. Your project looks ideal for me to play with. My initial project will be to replace my aging parent's and my home FreePBX IVR with something a bit more useful. At the moment it requests you press 1 to make the phones ring and that drops pretty much all unwanted calls but that will soon be automatically defeated. I do also have some…

That is a fantastic idea. We’ve tested it on low-resource hardware. It’s SIP-agnostic and modular, making it ideal for home or SMB setups. We would love to highlight your RPi implementation if you publish it. GitHub: https://github.com/videosdk-live/agents

Re: Build an AI telephony agent for inbound and outbound calls

#40

Post by sagarkava »

mmasu wrote: post #27

we tried to build something similar lately for outbound calls (for simple reminders to partners) and faced massive issues using gpt-4o-realtime-audio. Noise detection, turn detection, random telephony issues (we were using Twilio too), prompt not holding together, and more. We dropped the project because it would have resulted in a terrible experience for the person on the other side of the phone. Building these thin…

We experienced similar challenges. That’s why we made audio handling, turn detection, and LLM retries modular. You can swap models or providers as needed. GitHub: https://github.com/videosdk-live/agents Blog: https://www.videosdk.live/blog/ai-telephony-agent-inbound-ou...
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