Phone: the heaviest channel, and not available with us
You cannot buy phone from us. Nova answers email and WhatsApp Business; voice is switched off, and there is no date on which that changes. This page exists because the question comes up often: what is involved when an AI picks up your phone? Voice is less forgiving than text — with email nobody minds a reply arriving a second later, but on a call every hesitant second stands out. Below is what the channel demands, so you can weigh it up with whichever supplier you are looking at.
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What characterises phone as a channel
| Aspect | How it works |
|---|---|
| Available from Novot AI? | No — we do not offer this channel; email and WhatsApp Business we do |
| Tolerance for delay | Very low; silences are immediately noticeable |
| AI disclosure | Were the channel added, then audible at the start of every call |
| What voice generally works for | Short, bounded conversations: availability, routing, confirming |
| What voice rarely works for | Conversations involving emotion, complaints or negotiation |
Note: we do not offer this channel. Nova works on email and WhatsApp Business; you cannot buy this channel from us, not even as a paid add-on. What follows describes what the channel demands — it is not an offer.
Where it goes wrong in practice
The pitfall with voice is that it works too well in a demo and too poorly in practice. A demo call follows a path someone designed; a real caller interrupts, talks over the question, or calls about something that is not covered. That is why phone always needs a routing path that actually works, and why the AI should say at the start that it is an AI. Anyone skipping that second point discovers at the first complaint that it was not a detail. As long as we do not have that sorted, voice stays off with us — half-on is not an option on this channel.
When this is not the right channel
With us it is not a choice anyway: we do not offer phone, so you start with text. Beyond that, the same holds at any supplier: if most of your calls involve complaints, price negotiation or something emotional, voice is not the channel to start with. With text a human can review before anything goes out; on a call that is too late.
What this channel would require
We are not asking you for anything here, because we do not switch this channel on. This is what would need to be in place if you have it set up somewhere else:
- Right now nothing: we do not switch this channel on. What follows would only apply if phone were ever added.
- A number that may be routed, and a decision whether that applies always or only outside office hours.
- A routing path to a human that works at the moments it is needed — voicemail is not a routing path.
- A list of subjects that are not handled automatically but go straight to a human. That list is shorter for voice than for text.
Why this channel is not available with us
Channels we do offer go live along a fixed sequence: intake call, analysis of your existing communication from the past 90 days, and a shadow week in which Nova prepares answers but sends nothing. For this channel that path does not exist. It is switched off, and there is no date on which that changes. If this is where you want to start, we are the wrong supplier — better to hear that now than after an intake call.
What applies legally once an AI communicates on your behalf — the transparency obligation and the article 22 GDPR boundary — is set out in the AI Act for SMEs and AI and the GDPR for SMEs.