The AI Voice Receptionist is Joby AI working on your phone channel. Unlike SMS and email which use simple settings, voice runs on a visual call flow: the AI is one node on a canvas, surrounded by nodes for live-agent handoff, voicemail fallback, and routing. This walkthrough covers the full setup — building the flow, writing the prompt, wiring the exits, and assigning a phone number.

​

You'll find Joby AI Hub under Settings. Each channel — SMS, email, voice — has its own tab.

​

​

The Voice tab is where you build and manage AI phone call flows. Voice settings are independent from SMS and email, so the voice agent can sound and act differently.

​

​

Open flow builder takes you to the visual canvas where you'll wire the call flow. Every node represents a step in the call: the AI agent, live-agent queue, voicemail, time-based routing, and so on.

​

​

The AI Receptionist node is the brain of the flow. Clicking it opens the side panel where you set the prompt, welcome message, voice, speaking speed, max duration, and post-call actions.

​

​

The System Prompt is the AI's instructions. It covers who the AI is, how it should talk, what to collect from callers, scheduling rules, and crucially when to use each exit path (completed, live_agent, not_booked, error). Joby pre-fills it with variables like {{business_name}}, {{business_hours}}, and {{is_open_now}} so the AI always knows the current context. Edit the body to match your business.

​

​

The Welcome Message is the first thing the AI says when the call connects. Keep it short and on-brand: "Hi, thanks for calling {{business_name}}. How can I help you today?"

​

​

The Voice dropdown lets you pick how the AI sounds. There are ten built-in voices from OpenAI Audio — from calm and professional to warm and friendly.

​

​

Pick the voice that fits your business. Marin matches the OpenAI Audio test setup and is a safe default. Other options include Cedar (premium phone), Shimmer (friendly female), Alloy (neutral), Sage (calm), and more.

​

​

Speaking Speed controls how fast the AI talks. Normal works for most businesses. Slow it down if your callers are older or in a noisy environment; speed it up if your customers expect a snappy pace.

​

​

Max Duration (in seconds) is the longest a single AI call can run before it ends. Default is 600 seconds (10 minutes). Most service calls finish in 2–4 minutes — raise this only if your AI is regularly hitting the cap.

​

​

Two automations fire after every AI call:

Send Call Summary Notification — posts a short summary into the conversation thread in Joby so your team can see what happened without listening to the recording.

Auto-Create Appointment from Call — if the caller scheduled service during the call, Joby extracts the caller info, service details, and time from the conversation and creates the appointment in the calendar automatically. No data entry needed.

​

​

The Done exit (green) fires when the AI finishes the call normally — a successful booking, a captured message, or any other normal completion. Wire it to whatever comes next in your flow: usually that's a polite-hangup node or a final voicemail confirmation.

​

​

The Live exit (blue) is the handoff path to a real person. Wire it to a Wait for Agent node so the call routes to your live-agent queue.

Important: the AI only uses this exit when your System Prompt explicitly tells it to. If you don't add the rule, the AI will never transfer. Add a line like: "If the caller clearly asks for a person and the Open now value is Yes, say you will connect them and use the live_agent exit."

​

​

Use a name your team will recognize at a glance, like "AI Receptionist" or "After-Hours Voice". The name shows up everywhere the flow is referenced.

​

​

Pick the phone number that should run this flow. Each number can only run one flow at a time.

To run the same flow on several numbers, don't assign each one individually — instead, point them all at a Call Group and assign the call group here. See the Call Groups guide for setup.

​

​

Only numbers you've already purchased or connected to Joby appear here. If the number you want isn't listed, buy or port it first in Settings → Phone Numbers.

​

​

Hit Save Flow and it's live. The AI starts answering calls on the selected number immediately. To pause it, come back here and toggle Active off — no need to delete the flow.

​

​