dialnote AI agents handle calls and messages when your team can't. They greet callers, answer common questions, book appointments, and transfer complex issues to the right person. Available around the clock, they're never on break.
There are two types of AI agents in dialnote: Voice Agents for phone calls and Message Agents for SMS conversations. Right now you can only create Voice Agents: Message Agents are coming soon, and existing message agents keep running.
What AI Agents Do#
Voice Agents#
Voice agents pick up incoming calls and talk to callers naturally. They listen, respond, and take actions based on your instructions.
- Answer calls 24/7 — picks up when your team is busy, after hours, or unavailable
- Speak naturally — conversational language that sounds human, not robotic
- Book appointments — connects to Calendly or Cal.com to schedule meetings on the spot
- Send text messages — texts callers with links, confirmations, or follow-up info
- Transfer to your team — routes calls to specific team members when needed
- Answer questions — pulls from your knowledge base to handle FAQs accurately
Message Agents#
Message agents respond to incoming SMS conversations automatically. You can't create new ones yet (they show as Coming soon). They read messages, reply intelligently, and can take actions just like voice agents.
- Reply to texts instantly — no waiting for a team member to respond
- Look up contacts — pulls caller info from your contact list for personalized replies
- Send links — shares URLs for scheduling, payments, or resources
- Transfer to a human — hands off to a team member when the conversation needs a personal touch
- Book meetings — logs the requested time as a conversation note so your team can follow up
When to use each type
Use voice agents for after-hours call coverage, capturing caller details, and appointment booking. Use message agents for quick text-based support, appointment confirmations, and lead qualification. For complex sales conversations or sensitive issues, you'll want human agents handling those directly.
How It Works#
When a call comes in to a phone number with an AI agent assigned, here's what happens:
Message agents follow a similar flow — when an SMS arrives on a number with a message agent assigned, the bot reads the text, generates a reply, and sends it back automatically.
Behind the scenes, your AI agent uses:
- Your instructions — the identity, task steps, and guardrails you define
- Your knowledge base — documents, FAQs, and URLs you upload
- Your tools — actions like booking meetings, sending SMS, or custom webhooks
Key Components#
Agent Instructions#
You define how your AI agent behaves through four sections, plus one optional section:
| Section | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Agent Identity | Who the agent is and what it represents | "You're Alex, a receptionist at Smith Dental" |
| Call plan | The step-by-step workflow the agent follows | "1. Greet caller. 2. Ask purpose. 3. Book or transfer" |
| Interaction Style | How the agent communicates | "Friendly but professional. Keep responses brief" |
| Guardrails & Rules | Topics or actions to avoid | "Don't discuss pricing. Don't make promises" |
| Details to collect from callers (optional) | Up to 6 details the agent asks for and saves with the call | "Name, address, type of job" |
Voice Selection (Voice Agents Only)#
You pick a voice from multiple providers — ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Deepgram, and PlayHT. Each voice has different characteristics: male or female, various accents, formal or casual tone.
Language support covers 14 languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic (with regional accent variants for several). Pick a voice that matches your brand and customer expectations.
Knowledge Bases#
Knowledge bases give your agent specific information about your business. You can upload:
- URLs — your website pages, help articles, pricing pages (up to 500 URLs)
- Documents — PDFs, Word docs, text files, spreadsheets (up to 25 files, 50MB each)
- Text snippets — FAQs, scripts, product details (up to 50 snippets)
The agent searches this knowledge to answer questions accurately. Turn on auto-refresh and the agent re-scans your URLs on a schedule, so it always has current info. See Knowledge Bases for the full setup.
Shared knowledge bases
Knowledge bases are created separately and can be attached to multiple agents. Update a knowledge base once and every connected agent gets the latest info.
Custom Tools#
Tools let your agent take actions during calls or conversations:
| Tool | Voice | Message | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| End Conversation | Auto | Yes | Message agents close the text conversation. Voice agents hang up automatically, no setup needed |
| Transfer to Team / Transfer to Human | Yes | Yes | Routes to specific team members |
| Transfer to Another AI Agent | Yes | — | Hands off mid-call to a different AI agent |
| Send SMS / Send Link | Yes | Yes | Texts the caller with links or confirmations |
| Lookup Contact | — | Yes | Pulls caller details from your contact list |
| Check Availability | Yes | — | Looks up open time slots from Calendly/Cal.com |
| Book Meeting | Yes | Yes | Voice agents book through Calendly/Cal.com. Message agents log the request as a note for your team |
| Custom Webhook | Yes | Yes | Calls your own API for any custom action |
Booking and availability tools connect to your calendar. See Calendly and Cal.com for how to link an account.
After the Call#
Every AI agent call gets analyzed automatically, so you can see what happened without listening back to recordings:
- Transcription — a full text record of the conversation, plus a short summary
- Call scoring — rates each call from 1 to 10 on resolution, flow, and caller sentiment (needs AI call tagging turned on for the number)
- Sentiment analysis — flags whether the caller sounded positive, neutral, or negative
Sentiment shows up on each call in your agent reports (the call score is only available through the API), so you can spot patterns and tune your agent over time.
Getting Started#
Ready to create your first AI agent? You've got three ways to start:
- AI-Powered Setup (recommended) — describe what you need in plain English and the AI builds your agent configuration automatically
- Browse Templates — pick a pre-built agent for common use cases like customer support, appointment booking, or sales qualification
- Build from Scratch — full manual control over every setting for advanced users
The fastest path:
- Go to AI Agents in your dialnote dashboard
- Click Create Agent and choose Voice Agent
- Pick your setup method (AI-powered, template, or scratch)
- Configure your agent's instructions and tools
- Test your agent with a live simulation
- Assign it to a phone number to go live
Your plan needs to include AI Agents, and it sets how many voice agents you can create (shown as used / limit next to Create Agent). At the limit, Voice Agent shows Upgrade instead of opening the wizard.
For detailed steps, see Creating an AI Agent.
What's Next#
- Create your first agent — step-by-step setup guide
- Configure agent settings — voice, language, and behavior options
- Add knowledge bases — train your agent with business info
- Set up custom tools — booking, SMS, webhooks, and more
- Test before going live — verify your agent works correctly
- Review call transcripts — read summaries and full transcripts after each call