What is a voicebot?

Unlike a classic voice menu (IVR) that only knows fixed key options, a voicebot understands freely phrased sentences. It converts speech to text (speech-to-text), processes the request with a language model and replies again as a natural voice (text-to-speech).

In business use a voicebot takes appointments, reservations or service enquiries, answers recurring questions and passes the important parts to the team. Empfango is such a voicebot – GDPR-compliant and operated on EU servers.

Technically, a voicebot works in three steps: speech recognition converts what is said into text, a large language model understands the request and formulates the answer, and speech synthesis outputs it as a natural voice. Modern voicebots do this in under a second, so the conversation feels fluid – including interruptions and follow-up questions.

When comparing voicebot providers, four points are worth checking: privacy (Where is speech processed? Is there a transparent AI announcement as required by the GDPR and the EU AI Act?), voice quality and latency, integrations (calendar, CRM, webhooks) and cost. For European companies, EU data processing is often the deciding factor, since many providers route speech through US services.

Voicebot costs typically range from €50 to a few hundred euros per month depending on provider and volume – well below the cost of a staffed reception or a classic phone answering service that bills per call.