Best AI answering phone calls for SMBs in 2026

For call or contact center business services, every single call is important. But imagine missing a lead just because your agent couldn’t respond to each incoming call, or multiple customers hung up due to the long wait time. It’s not easy to attend every call during peak hours or after shifts. That’s where AI steps in.

With AI answering phone calls for small businesses, human agents focus on high-priority tasks or calls that need a personal touch. Virtual agents can handle multiple calls at once, intelligently routing only the most critical queries to live agents. 

This means even a small team can manage a high volume of calls efficiently with AI support. With so many options, each claiming to be the best one, how will you choose one?

In this blog, we have listed the best AI phone answering services for small businesses in 2025, along with all the necessary information you need to know.

What are AI phone answering services?

AI phone answering services are voice bot systems that use artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies to respond to a customer query in real time. It is used in small businesses to improve the agent’s productivity and reduce staffing costs by automating routine tasks.

It handles customer queries by using automatic voice recognition and natural language understanding (NLU) to understand what the customer is trying to say. Then it uses speech-to-text followed by natural language processing (NLP) to process the query using its knowledge base and pre-trained data sets. Finally, it responds in a natural voice with trained voice models to make the conversation interactive. 

The best part about it is that all of these happen in a fraction of a second, so it almost feels like talking to another human. It can be used to automate routine tasks like appointment booking, task scheduling, FAQs, and call routing. It can also be used to create personalized interactions based on past customer history, so your AI phone answering assistant can reflect your brand value. 

8 Best AI answering phone services for small and medium-sized businesses 

Let’s take a look at the best AI answering phone call services for SMBs in detail:

Provider	Features	Ideal For
KrispCall	AI-powered virtual phone system, call routing & voicemail, call recording & analytics, Global numbers	It is ideal for businesses that need an all-in-one AI phone system with multi-country coverage
XBert AI	AI receptionist for calls, SMS, and web chat24/7 automated customer handlingCall answering, lead qualification & appointment scheduling Website-based knowledge base for FAQs	Businesses that want a simple, fast-to-deploy AI receptionist to handle leads and customer interactions across multiple channels 24/7
CloudTalk	Human-like conversational AICall campaign analytics, Voice & language customization Voice cloning capabilities	Perfect for sales & support teams looking for seamless integrations with existing tools
IsOn24	AI auto-attendant, call transcription, voicemail to email, customizable call flows	Ideal for mall businesses that want a round-the-clock AI receptionist service
SimplePhone	AI auto-attendantCall transcriptionVoicemail to emailCustomizable call flows	Well-suited for startups and SMBs needing an affordable, simple AI phone system
Zendesk Answer Bot	Multilingual answering support, Customer intent recognition, AI-powered article suggestion, and personalized service recommendations	Better for businesses already using Zendesk for customer service
Abby Connect	AI + human receptionist hybridTransfer calls & screeningAI receptionist appointment bookingBilingual support	Ideal for professionals and SMBs needing a personal touch with AI + human support
Bland AI	Human-like conversational AI Call campaign analytics Voice & language customization Voice cloning capabilities	Well-suited for businesses with well-established technical teams for a quick setup and function.
Goodcall	AI-powered receptionistCall screening & routingText & call handlingEasy setup via mobile	Multilingual answering support, Customer intent recognition, AI-powered article suggestion Personalized service recommendations

Here is a detailed explanation of each provider with their overviews, pros, and cons. It also provides you with a clear idea of the AI answering service pricing for 2025.

1. KrispCall 

KrispCall is an AI-powered voice agent that handles customer calls directly without human intervention. It uses VoIP technology to offer features such as call forwarding, multi-level IVR, and a power dialer. It is built to help businesses with AI features like an AI Copilot for incoming calls and an automated message for missed calls. It integrates with 100+ CRM and other business tools to provide a unified workflow and detailed call analytics.

The service is especially beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses that need a scalable and reliable VoIP solution. KrispCall’s Unified Callbox brings all call history, text messages, and voicemails into one organized dashboard to make easy interactions. 

Its features, like multiple numbers, mass texting, and a webphone, provide a versatile and trusted system for all business calling needs. The platform’s focus on user-friendliness and reliable features makes it a solid choice for companies looking to establish a professional phone presence without complex hardware.

Its recent update includes AI features like Voice AI that interacts with customers’ queries in real-time and also manages most of the incoming calls to help users without human intervention. This feature helps to reduce agent workload and save staffing costs for businesses.

Pros

• It offers a unified dashboard to manage calls, texts, and voicemails.
• It offers AI-powered features like AI reply, AI voice, and AI Copilot.
• KrispCall supports number porting and multiple numbers from over 100 countries.
• It offers call management features such as call forwarding and call intercept.

Cons

• The wide range of features might present a learning curve for some users.
• As a modern solution, it’s still growing compared to older services.
• Some of its features are still in progress.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annually
Essential	$15	$12
Standard	$40	$32
Enterprise	Custom	Custom

2. XBert AI

XBert AI is Nextiva’s AI receptionist built for service businesses that want to stop losing leads from missed calls, texts, and web chats. It works across all three channels from one place and helps businesses handle customer conversations 24/7 without hiring a full-time receptionist.

XBert can greet callers, answer common questions, schedule appointments, qualify leads, and transfer calls to the right team member, including full conversation context. What makes XBert AI stand out is how simple the setup is. Instead of needing technical workflows or custom API work, businesses can launch it in less than five minutes.

It can also pull information from your website to build a knowledge base, which helps it respond to FAQs such as business hours, pricing, services, and directions. On top of that, XBert AI answering service supports calendar integrations, CRM sync, multi-location routing, analytics, and HIPAA compliance for medical and dental offices.

Pros

• Offers 24/7 support across calls, SMS, and web chat in one inbox.
• Setup is fast and requires no coding or complex technical configuration.
• Supports integrations with popular CRMs and calendars like Calendly, Google Calendar, and Cal.

Cons

• Only available for businesses based in the United States.
• May not be the best fit for businesses with very low call volume.
• Some advanced integrations may require an extra cost.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annually
XBert AI	$99 After 99 conversations, $0.99 each.	$99 After 99 conversations, $0.99 each.

Nextiva’s XBert AI also comes with month-to-month pricing and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

3. CloudTalk

CloudTalk is a cloud-based contact center platform that is designed to handle high call volumes. It offers AI-driven inbound and outbound call handling features with a built-in auto attendant system. Although it is not a fully conversational AI, it offers core routing functionalities and a virtual receptionist. 

It also integrates with multiple CRM software to help customize the interactions. It provides multilingual support to help AI receptionists understand the customer queries in multiple languages, along with features like smart dialers, call tagging, and call analytics.

Pros

• Can be integrated with multiple CRMs and other business tools.
• CloudTalk supports multilingual functionality.
• Supports a template-based prompt builder. 

Cons

• The pricing may feel high with additional feature add-ons.
• Users have reported occasional connection issues and app-related problems.
• Customer support can sometimes feel slow.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annually
Starter	$34	$25
Essential	$39	$29
Expert	$69	$49

4. IsOn24

IsOn24 is an AI-driven voice assistant service designed to automate calls handled for businesses. It answers calls, books appointments, sends texts, and organizes your voicemails, texts, and online chats in a simple screen. It helps you connect your calendar, scheduler, CRM, and other apps.

Your customer can speak or ask questions, and IsOn24 answers just like a live person and replies with texts and online links.

Pros

• Offers a 24/7 AI-powered answering service.
• Provides automated appointment booking that integrates with your calendar.
• Has an all-in-one dashboard for managing calls and text messages.

Cons

• Highly dependent on the initial setup and customization of the AI.
• Pricing can increase significantly with higher call and text volumes.
• Some businesses may prefer the human touch.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annually
Starter	$49	$39
Sprinter	$99	$79
Cruiser	$199	$159
Enterprise	Talk to sales	Talk to sales

5. Simple phones

SimplePhone offers an AI-powered phone answering service that creates a custom AI virtual receptionist to handle business calls. It comes with multiple features like inbound calls, outbound calls, and logging (a transparent record of all the calls with information like duration and transcript). It allows you to choose your preferred voice from the wide variety of options.

It also provides AI call routing systems and sms to different numbers so you can alert your team members. You can also add your website or FAQ documents to your AI agent so it can answer queries about your content.

Pros

• Provides extensive customization options for the AI agent’s behavior and voice.
• Offers transparent call logging with transcripts for easy review.
• Allows you to customize your agent as per your needs.

Cons

• The service may struggle with highly complex or unique inquiries that are not provided in the information.
• The base plan has a call limit, and overage charges can apply.
• The quality of the AI’s responses depends heavily on the accuracy and completeness of the information provided.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly
Basic	$97
Advanced	$297
Premium	$497

6. Zendesk Answer Bot

Zendesk’s answering bot is an AI answering service that uses machine learning to respond to customer queries with the knowledge you feed into its knowledge base. As soon as the ticket comes, the bot learns from the help article and responds to the query. By doing so, it saves time and cost by solving the query before it reaches the live agent. 

It is highly scalable and can be an effective way for growing businesses to provide 24/7 support and improve response times without significantly increasing staff.

Pros

• Handles simple and repetitive questions to reduce workload on human agents.
• Zendesk’s answering bot is highly scalable to handle large volumes of inquiries.
• Supports multiple languages and can be customized to different brand voices.

Cons

• It can be complex to set up and requires a significant initial investment.
• Advanced AI features and full functionality often come at a higher price.
• The AI may sometimes struggle with an unclear caller’s voice.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annually
Support Team	$25	$19
Suite Team	$69	$55
Suite Professional	$149	$115
Suite Enterprise	$219	$169

7. Abby Connect 

Abby Connect is a live virtual receptionist service that blends personal connections with AI-powered efficiency. It provides both human and AI receptionist services for you to handle queries and have complete control over the receptionists. It comes in both a mobile app and a desktop portal.

It provides built-in integrations for your calls and customer insights to sync with your workflows. It offers multiple features such as custom answering, customized call handling, appointment scheduling, bilingual receptionists, voicemail solutions, and more. 

Pros

• Offers a blend of AI and live receptionists for a versatile solution.
• Abby Connect can handle calls in both English and Spanish.
• Well-known for its professional and well-trained receptionists.

Cons

• The primary service is human-based, which can be significantly more expensive.
• Some users have reported billing issues or receiving charges for spam calls.
• Setup fees may apply, and the overall cost is dependent on the amount of usage.

Pricing

Plan pricing for an AI receptionist	Monthly (after 14-day trial)
Free	$0
Starter	$99
Essential	$165
Professional	$299
Growth	$690
Enterprise	Contact sales

8. Bland

Bland is an AI answering call service that provides AI phone agents that sound like humans and can speak any language. It allows you to build the perfect employee that can handle sales, schedule meetings, and provide customer support 24/7. It allows you to write custom prompts, set strict guidelines to define boundaries, and exchange data. 

It offers auto-scaling infrastructure with 99.99% uptime to help you deliver exceptional customer service. With Bland, you can map out the conversation and define the decisions your AI makes, and its voice answering system can take care of the rest of the interactions. 

Pros

• Provides high security as it is HIPAA and SOC2 certified.
• Offers voice cloning capabilities so you can create realistic voice profiles for AI agents.
• Bland AI uses an API-first design to provide you with full control over conversational flow and customization.

Cons

• The cost of advanced features like voice cloning, transcription, and LLM processing can add up quickly.
• The response time may feel slow sometimes.
• Lacks tools for non-technical users, such as no-code setups or visual sandboxes. 

Pricing

Plan	Price	Daily Cap	Hourly Cap	Concurrency	Voice Clones
Start	Free	100 calls	100 calls	10 calls	1
Build	$299	2,000 calls	1,000 calls	50 calls	5
Scale	$499	5,000 calls	1,000 calls	100 calls	15
Enterprise	Contact sales

9. Goodcall 

Goodcall is an AI phone answering system that answers and automates customer service and sales requests with Agentic Voice AI on every phone call. The AI agent can be customized with specific information about your business for accurate and helpful responses.

It helps you capture leads and launch your custom phone AI agent in a few minutes. It has a faster response time and reacts to callers based on past interactions. With its easy-to-use interface, you will have complete control over the agent from day one. 

Pros

• Provides an AI virtual receptionist for small businesses.
• The AI can be trained on a custom knowledge base for accurate answers.
• Provides a professional presence without the high cost of a live receptionist.

Cons

• The service is limited to inbound calls and does not handle outbound dialing.
• The pricing may feel high to some businesses.
• Lacks the full suite of VoIP features that other providers offer.

Pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annually
Starter	$59	$41
Growth	$99	$69
Scale	$199	$139
Enterprise	Contact sales	Contact sales

Why Businesses are switching to an AI answering phone service

Many businesses are recently switching to AI answering phone services to reduce their agents’ workload and significantly reduce costs by automating tasks. Let’s discuss some of the major reasons why businesses are making a switch to voice answering machines:

1. 24/7 availability

Availability is the primary concern when we are talking about AI agents because, like humans, AI does not need to rest or take leave to provide better results. AI agents can continuously work efficiently without taking breaks or leave on weekends, which makes them better in terms of crisis or when availability is needed. 

Customer inquiries can occur at any time, even in the middle of the night. In such situations, AI handles the work efficiently, providing 24/7 customer support so your business does not lose any important leads. 

2. Cost effectiveness

AI answering phone services can significantly reduce your business’s cost by handling multiple calls and customer inquiries without the help of human agents. This way, AI mostly handles the routine tasks and automates updates as well as simple tasks based on the way you train it, so you can manage the staffing needs based on the peak time or arrange the human agents’ shifts only when needed. 

Moreover, you can use AI for further analytics and data-driven insights to increase your human agents’ efficiency so they can handle a query in a shorter time than usual, and as a result, they can utilize their free time in crucial work. This way, even a limited number of human agents can handle the tasks of multiple agents if their tasks are backed up and helped using AI agents.  

3. Faster response time 

Using AI agents to answer calls can increase the response time of small businesses, as AI agents are quick to respond and direct the calls as per the customers’ demand. If the customers call for minor queries, AI handles them efficiently without human intervention, and if they seek complicated results, AI agents route the call to the right department or agent based on their availability. 

4. Multilingual support      

AI agents shine in the area of multilingual support. Most of the time, it is inconvenient for human agents to understand the language of every customer, as the language understanding capacity of humans is limited. In such cases, AI agents can be a great alternative to handle such customers and understand and break down customers’ queries in the way agents understand. 

This not only increases the agent’s efficiency but also helps in improving the brand value of your business. This way, all the customers feel equally acknowledged without the language barrier. 

5. Scalability

AI answering machines can instantly adapt to sudden scale in call volume or ongoing growth without requiring additional staff or infrastructure. It avoids bottleneck issues and maintains service quality even with a surge in inquiries. 

These services do not need to hire human agents. Once you purchase and deploy these AI service agents and feed their knowledge base with your business’s data regarding the services you offer, it can automatically handle the call volumes even if you scale up your business.

6. Consistent customer experience

Businesses are relying on AI because it provides 24/7 AI phone answering for SMBs. Once you have set up your virtual receptionists for your business system, it can handle daily operations like a professional. It is capable of managing simple queries without human intervention. 

Also, it constantly learns from the pre-provided data into its knowledge base and learns to adapt to customers’ preferences and reflect your brand identity. It handles each customer query with equal priority without being exhausted or letting go of the active leads. Overall, it is a great companion for human agents to provide active support with consistency.  

How to choose the right AI answering service for your SMBs  

Choosing the right AI answering service for your small business totally depends on factors like the needs of your business, the type of services you provide, the use of AI, and its level of customization to adapt it to your operations. 

Here are a few ways you should consider while selecting one:

• Business growth: The AI answering phone call service that you are considering must be able to adapt to your growing business needs. As you continue to grow or scale up/down, your AI service should be able to adjust to new changes without affecting the performance or customer experience.
• Customizability: Customers now aren’t satisfied with good service; they want to feel valued and seek customization at every step. In fact, 73% of customers expect better personalization as technology advances. Your SMB AI answering service should properly address this customer’s needs. 
• Cost-effectiveness: Small businesses are often on a tight budget, and if the AI answering service you choose isn’t under your budget, then what’s the point? Try to look for the provider that offers all the features you need for your organization and has a pay-as-you-go model, so you do not have to worry about paying for unnecessary features you will never use. 
• Integration with existing systems: The AI service you choose must integrate well with your existing system. What is the point of having an AI service and still manually retrieving the information from other business tools without integration options? Always look for the systems that allow you to sync all your data into one unified dashboard so you have all your interactions in one place. 
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) Capabilities: Your AI phone call answering service must have NLP capabilities. To understand and process your customer’s query and respond back in natural language. NLP is an important feature and works along with multiple similar technologies, like speech recognition, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text, to respond to your customers’ queries in real time. 

Upgrade your business with KrispCall’s AI answering service

In the field of AI answering service, you may come across multiple options, each claiming they are the best. However, the best one for you entirely depends on your call volume, budget, and the features required by your business. 

If you’re searching for an AI that can effectively handle phone calls, KrispCall is a reliable solution that adapts to your growing business needs. With a broad range of AI-powered features such as AI Assist, AI Reply, Text Message Responder, and AI Voice agents for SMBs, KrispCall offers everything you need to stay efficient and connected.

As a cloud-based telephony service, KrispCall provides virtual numbers (local, vanity, UIFN, mobile, and toll-free) across more than 100 countries. It’s scalable, cost-effective, and packed with features designed to support small businesses. So if you are confused about selecting an AI answering phone call feature, Krispcall is a wise choice to consider.

Book a free demo and try KrispCall today to experience countless options and stay ahead of the competition.