Voice AI agents are entering enterprise telephony, but integrating them with legacy telecom systems is far from trivial. The core pipeline requires LLMs, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, turn-taking logic, and a telephony gateway. Key technical challenges include managing latency (ITU recommends under 400ms mouth-to-ear), avoiding impersonal AI voices, and achieving interoperability with existing SIP/PSTN infrastructure. Practical tips include streaming audio end-to-end to cut latency, using diverse TTS voices, choosing CPaaS providers with broad carrier relationships, and deeply integrating with CRM and contact center systems. Future-proofing requires treating LLM and speech vendors as swappable components and anticipating rapid improvements in the space.
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