Glossary
AI voice agent glossary
Clear definitions for the concepts behind AI voice agents, call routing, and automation.
AI Voice Agent
A conversational AI that answers phone calls and holds natural, multi-turn voice conversations with callers.
Call Deflection
The share of inbound calls resolved without ever reaching a human agent — typically expressed as a percentage of total volume.
Call Routing
Directing each inbound call to the correct destination — human agent, queue, or automated workflow — based on intent, caller context, or business rules.
After-Hours Call Handling
The strategy and system for answering inbound calls outside business hours — including overnight, weekends, holidays, lunch hours, and any staff-coverage gaps.
Appointment Scheduling
The end-to-end workflow for booking customer appointments by phone — including availability matching, confirmation, reminders, and reschedule/cancellation handling.
Lead Qualification
The structured process of determining whether a prospect is a fit, has buying intent, and is worth a sales conversation — before a human rep’s time is spent.
Call Triage
The rapid assessment of inbound-call urgency and severity to determine the right immediate response path — from emergency dispatch to next-day callback.
Voice AI
The broader category of AI systems that understand and produce human speech in real time — the underlying technology stack powering AI voice agents.
Human Handoff
The transfer of a call from an AI voice agent to a human agent — ideally with full context, so the human starts the conversation already informed.
Call Logging
The automatic capture and storage of every call’s metadata, audio, transcript, intent, and outcome — typically into a CRM, help desk, or analytics system.
Call Analytics
The systematic measurement of call-flow performance — deflection rate, AHT, FCR, CSAT, escalation patterns, intent distribution, and revenue attribution.
Voice Bot
Generic term for any automated phone-based voice system — ranging from primitive scripted bots to modern AI voice agents. Often used interchangeably with "AI voice agent".
IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
Traditional phone menu systems where callers press keypad numbers ("press 1 for sales") to navigate to a department or pre-recorded answer.
Conversational AI
The broader category of AI systems designed to hold multi-turn natural-language conversations — including AI voice agents, chatbots, and messaging assistants.
Speech-to-Text (ASR)
The technology that transcribes spoken audio into text in real time — also called automatic speech recognition (ASR). One of the three core layers of voice AI.
Text-to-Speech (TTS)
The technology that generates natural-sounding spoken audio from text — completing the voice AI loop alongside speech-to-text and language models.
Call Summary
An AI-generated structured recap of a call — typically including reason for the call, key facts captured, actions taken, and recommended next step.
Call Transfer
The mechanism for moving a call from one destination to another — typically AI to human, or one team/queue to another. Best implemented as a "warm transfer" with context.
Call Disposition
The final outcome category assigned to a completed call — resolved, escalated, booked, declined, no-answer, etc. Standardized for reporting and follow-up automation.
Call Volume Spike
A sudden, often unpredictable surge in inbound call volume — driven by weather events, marketing campaigns, outages, viral content, or seasonal patterns.
Call Center Automation
The broader category of using AI and software to automate contact center functions — call answering, routing, agent assist, transcription, QA, and workforce management.
Call Queue
The waiting line of inbound callers held while agents become available — the operational symptom of demand exceeding human capacity.
Agent Escalation
The process and triggers by which an AI voice agent hands off to a human agent — defined by rules around complexity, sentiment, or explicit caller request.