We Reviewed 7 AI Answering Services for Small Business
Here at Smashvc, we’ve invested in a ton of small businesses that are now evaluating whether or not to adopt an AI virtual receptionist. We know, for certain, that the goal isn’t just to adopt some “exciting new tech”. It’s rooted more in reality. The point is to solve real-world business problems. To facilitate answering more calls, dropping costs, and booking more appointments.
With that, we evaluated almost a dozen services for our portfolio companies and figured out which are the best for different situations. So in this post we share with you the top AI answering services for each type of company, from small businesses booking more appointments, to large enterprises routing calls to various departments.
Here Are The Quick Picks: Our Top 3 AI Answering Services
If you don’t want to read the (long) full review, here is the TL;DR of our top three favorite AI answering systems.
1. Rosie AI – Best Overall for Small Businesses
Rosie was the best service for most of our portfolio companies, from a simple home services company up to a 50+ location oil change franchise.
- Human-like, natural voice
- Fast setup and onboarding
- Unlimited minutes and excellent pricing options
- Quite easy to use
2. OmniMD – Best for Healthcare
- Ideal for appointment-focused calls
- HIPAA-compliant caller data management
- Excellent calendar integration
3. Slang – Best for Restaurants
- Hospitality-specific virtual receptionist
- Able to field multiple calls simultaneously
- Integrates with reservation tools and calendars
Keep reading if you’re interested in in-depth reviews. Our full list of the top AI answering services is further down the article.
How We Evaluated the Different Answering Systems
Our assessment of the top AI answering services leans practical rather than data-driven. Sure, a spreadsheet revealing a list of metrics and ratings looks great. But such a rigid approach doesn’t always align with the challenges that businesses face.
So, here are the common questions to ask when evaluating AI answering services.
1. Does the AI Tool Reduce Admin Effort?
Here’s a common, frustrating scenario. You find an AI phone agent that takes customer calls, but it creates so much admin overhead. Staff find themselves in just another kind of bottleneck. A great AI receptionist fields incoming calls and simplifies subsequent admin steps. These steps include capturing customer data and low-stakes redirects.
2. Does the Tool Slot Into Existing Workflows?
The hallmark of any great tool is how easily you can customize it to complement your existing systems. A great AI answering service is adaptable. It shapes itself around your world, minimizing adoption effort. This lowers the risk of causing downstream issues.
3. Can It Interpret Real-World Complexity?
Demos can be misleading. They often follow an interaction path that’s ideal for the tool, not the typical user. Small business customers never explain their problem as if they’re reading from a script. They seldom (never) reply to questions in predictable ways. They are emotional. They are confused. And, most importantly, they don’t always understand your product.
A great AI answering service is intelligent enough to understand the noise that an interaction generates. It can respond to it with precision and sensitivity.
4. Does It Feel Like an Authentic Interaction?
In our experience, customers respond very positively to conversations that make them feel like they’re talking with a human. Many people still carry the frustration of dealing with stubborn, unhelpful, recorded voices. They are desperate for an automated interaction that brings a bit of warmth and empathy.
5. Whether the Tool Can Handle a Wide Variety of Interaction Types
Most businesses need their call answering service to perform a wide variety of functions. Urgent support calls need triage. Sales leads need specific product information. And angry customers need escalation. The best AI phone answering systems are capable of these use cases without human intervention.
Considerations When Choosing for Your Business
It’s important to understand the difference between
- Evaluating the objective quality of an AI answering service
- The AI answering service that’s right for your business
We’re not even going to attempt to do the latter.
What we can do is suggest a few questions to ask yourself when delving into the finer details of each candidate. Answering these will help you understand how each potential tool measures up against your business’s specific needs.
1. What Do Your Inbound Conversations Look Like?
Most businesses deal with a spectrum of call types, but most of them likely lean in a specific direction. Long, technical support conversations? Quick transactional queries? Rescheduling appointments?
Consider two key questions:
- Which types of conversations do you typically have with your callers?
- Which types of conversations do you never have?
Knowing the answers to these will go a long way in helping you choose the right AI answering service.
2. What Is Your Industry or Business Niche?
Several AI answering services offer functionality specific to certain sectors or business niches, like medical practices or restaurants. When investigating your options, consider looking for one that was designed specifically for a business like yours.
3. What Software Solutions Do You Need It Integrated With?
Some AI answering services offer seamless integration with big-name systems like Salesforce or Microsoft Teams. Others offer more granular integration via a platform like Zapier. Be aware of the systems that your inbound calls need to interact with. There likely are AI answering services that fit specific integration needs.
4. How Big a Role Does Escalation Play in Your Call Workflows?
If a large number of your calls require precise escalation to a human operator, seek out an AI answering service that offers granular customization in this regard. You’ll likely need a solution that offers robust functionality if there are:
- different human operators to whom a specific call can be escalated
- different kinds of escalation triggers
5. Is Your Business Subject to Compliance Regulations?
If you’re operating in a sector like healthcare or financial services, you’ll be aware of the many regulatory guidelines you’re subject to. Many of these will extend to how your automated call answering system functions.
It’s vital to consider regulatory responsibilities when investigating your options. The last thing you want is to buy and integrate a solution that exposes you to legal risk.
The 7 Best AI Answering Services for Small Businesses: The Ranking and Reviews
1. Rosie AI: Best Overall AI Answering Service for Small Businesses
- Founded: 2024
- Headquarters: Remote
Why Rosie AI is our top pick: Rosie AI was the best AI answering service we evaluated when the use-case is for a small business. In every criterion that we used when comparing these tools, Rosie AI was at (or near) the top.
- It was super easy to set up.
- Onboarding was 100% painless.
- The quality of its AI conversations was consistently among the best that we tested.
Specific standout features included:
- The ‘human quality’ of the AI voice
- Its ability to provide multichannel interactions across voice, text, and chat
- Its seamless integration with 1,000s of apps via Zapier if needed
To be clear, Rosie AI isn’t ideal for enterprises or large organizations like hospitals. It excels in a small-to-medium-sized business environment. It’s there to ensure that you never miss a lead or a crucial support query. It’s also excellent at filtering out spam and incoming sales calls.
Rosie AI can also send your team instant email or text notifications whenever a specific interaction is happening. This allows you to respond with precision and ensures that high-stakes calls don’t get lost.
Rosie AI is very competitively priced, starting at $49 per month. The base plan offers unlimited minutes and a multilingual (English and Spanish) agent. There’s also a 7-day trial.
2. Emitrr: Best for Appointment-Heavy Workflows
- Founded: 2019
- Headquarters: New York, NY
Emittr was specifically designed for service environments. That’s where missing a call means missing an appointment (and a conversion). The tool answers multiple incoming calls and places bookings directly into your chosen platform. For healthcare businesses, Emitter offers fully HIPAA-compliant options. Patient data is guaranteed to remain aligned with regulatory requirements.
This doesn’t mean that Emittr is only a scheduling tool. It can:
- Answer routine questions during a call
- Send appointment reminders
- Confirm bookings with your customers
- Integrate with most major EMRs and CRMs
If your business handles a large number of appointment requests and you can’t afford to have a bottleneck in incoming bookings, Emitter is likely to be the ideal solution for you.
3. Slang: Best for Restaurants and Hospitality Businesses
- Founded: 2019
- Headquarters: New York, NY
Slang.ai was built for growing businesses that operate in the food and beverage space. It’s ideal for teams fielding reservation requests and answering questions about locations and menu items.
Slang can juggle multiple phone calls simultaneously. This makes it perfect for restaurants that receive many reservation requests during busy periods when no one is free to answer the phone.
It also integrates with most reservation-management tools. All incoming bookings appear in your restaurant’s booking sheet almost immediately.
Slang’s AI human-like voice sounds natural and friendly. Its responses can be trained to match your brand’s overall tone. This is crucial if your business relies on projecting a consistent impression.
4. Numa: Best for Missed-Call Texting and Lead Capture
- Founded: 2016
- Headquarters: Oakland, CA
What sets Numa apart from its competitors? – Its ability to convert missed calls into sales opportunities. Whenever a call is missed, Numa follows up with the caller. It sends them a text message suggesting they have the conversation using SMS. This limits the likelihood that the frustrated caller will reach out to one of your competitors.
Numa is also capable of managing incoming text messages. Leads can get the information they need via SMS and even make bookings. The tool also integrates with POS systems, so customers can place orders via text.
5. AnswerConnect: Best for Frequent Call Escalation
- Founded: 2002
- Headquarters: Portland, OR
AnswerConnect is a unique service that offers a hybrid approach to call answering. The tool is a blend of AI voice assistance with a team of human agents that are available 24/7. This combination makes the tool ideal for businesses that frequently experience escalation requests where a query needs to be dealt with by a human.
The AI component manages initial calls. It routes calls the moment it interprets that the interaction needs a human touch. A dedicated group of agents trained on your business’s needs will take over.
6. Nexa: Best for Complex Business Calls
- Founded: 1982
- Headquarters: Phoenix, AZ
Nexa represents the next logical step from the AI-to-human escalation model. It is ideal for businesses where calls are so complex that a human always needs to be there. The AI component enables seamless and intelligent call routing. It ensures that the call is appropriately queued and allocated.
The Nexa team excels at granular tasks like:
- qualifying leads
- processing service requests
- overseeing complex intake scripts
This all-inclusive solution is ideal for businesses that want to free their staff from repetitive but complex call management duties.
7. Air AI: Best for Complex Phone Conversations
- Founded: 2023
- Headquarters: Miami, FL
Air AI stands out as the AI answering service that is best at handling sustained customer conversations. Not only can Air AI keep these conversations going in a logical way, but it manages to sound like a human agent throughout.
If your business fields incoming calls that need your phone operators to listen, interpret, and provide detailed voice responses, Air AI might be the right tool for you. Its ability to discern the caller’s intent allows it to respond intelligently to queries. It knows whether to treat the call like a sales opportunity or a general query.
Summary
The ideal tool for your business is likely to be the one that matches your niche requirements. As mentioned earlier, we think that it’s important to understand the details of why your customers or leads might get in touch over the phone. If you can put your finger on these variables, you’re likely to choose the best tool for your needs.
When it comes to our evaluation, there was one clear winner. Rosie AI offers businesses the flexibility, ease-of-use, and utility to be our pick for the best AI phone answering service for small businesses.
The other tools we looked at all excel at specific use cases. If these line up with your business needs, it’s definitely worth considering them. But for overall value, Rosie AI comes out on top.
Updated: January 9, 2026
