Smith.ai vs. Aircall

For growing businesses, missed calls mean frustrated customers and wasted opportunities.  When searching for AI answering solutions to scale customer engagement, choosing the right one can make all the difference. The right AI voice agent transforms how you connect with customers — turning every inbound call into a chance to build trust, capture leads, and drive revenue. Let’s compare AI Receptionist from Smith.ai with Aircall’s AI Voice Agent, so you can make a decision that supports long-term success for your business.

Features that both solutions have

• 24/7 call answering: Ensure no call goes unanswered.
• Lead qualification: Identify high-priority prospects.
• Call transfers: Route calls to the appropriate place.
• Answering FAQs: Provide accurate responses to common questions.
• Customizable AI voice: Tailor your call experience to reflect your brand.
• Bilingual call handling: Serve callers seamlessly in their preferred language.
• Reporting and analytics: Track call performance and optimize operations.

What sets Smith.ai apart

While both AI Receptionist and Aircall AI Voice Agent offer essential call handling features, AI Receptionist stands out as the more powerful, flexible partner for ambitious businesses. Smith.ai delivers a richer call resolution experience with live agent escalation, platform-agnostic integrations, white-glove deployment support, and instant call summaries, ensuring you — and your callers — get results, not just responses.

24/7 live agents 

Smith.ai combines the speed of AI with the professionalism of live virtual receptionists, ensuring that every call is handled expertly — 24/7/365. While AI efficiently manages most calls, businesses can add on our live agent network for seamless escalation of urgent, high-value, or nuanced conversations. This flexible approach lets you configure AI Receptionist to match your callers' needs, whether that's AI-only handling or our premium hybrid option that provides a human touch when your internal team is unavailable.

Aircall's AI Voice Agent can escalate calls internally, but if your team is busy or offline, callers may face delays — leading to the caller frustration you were trying to avoid in the first place. 

Without a live agent network, Aircall's solution simply can't deliver the same level of service continuity.

Complete call resolution capabilities

Smith.ai delivers extremely high-quality call handling, focusing on resolving callers' needs and ensuring every caller is heard. AI Receptionist is more than a glorified voicemail — it qualifies leads, books appointments, and can even facilitate secure payments with our 24/7 live agents.

Aircall's AI Voice Agent currently lacks appointment scheduling capabilities and, as mentioned, does not have a live agent network for handling nuanced call scenarios to completion. Call handling capability maxes out at answering questions, lead qualification, and transferring calls (which is useless if your internal agent can’t take the call). Aircall does not yet have the functionality to fully automate call handling resolution — meaning their AI Voice Agent cannot truly take work off your team's plate.

Freedom from platform lock-in

AI Receptionist flexibly connects and integrates with a wide variety of business phone platforms, so you're not locked into one solution. You have the freedom to continue leveraging the tools that work for each aspect of your business while maintaining seamless call handling.

Aircall's AI Voice Agent is an add-on to their platform, a bundled approach that limits your flexibility and forces you into a single ecosystem for business phone and AI call answering — whether it fits your business or not.

White-glove deployment and customization

AI Receptionist offers user-friendly features such as bilingual call handling and AI voice customization, so you can stay connected with your customers in their preferred language and communicate using a voice that best suits your brand. For enterprise teams requiring tailored workflows or centralized management across locations, our dedicated customer success organization is always ready to build your account to your unique needs and make expert recommendations that deliver better results for your AI Receptionist.

Aircall offers a few similar customizations for voice and language, but the extent of their AI Voice Agent’s flexibility and customization potential for businesses of varying sizes is unclear. Without a proven deployment team and tailored onboarding support, Aircall may not be the sophisticated, adaptable solution your business needs.

Instant updates, wherever you are

Smith.ai keeps you in the loop by providing instant, detailed call summaries straight to your inbox or text after each call. This ensures you stay informed in real time — even when you're on the go — and can respond quickly if needed to high-priority opportunities.

Aircall makes no mention of sending summaries directly to you or your team after calls; they only say that summaries are available in the dashboard. For swamped business owners and operators who aren't glued to their desks, this approach simply isn't practical.

Proven by thousands of businesses

Our reviews speak for themselves. With hundreds of glowing reviews across Trustpilot, G2, and Clutch, our clients attest that Smith.ai has delivered top-rated call answering services for years. Businesses trust Smith.ai to handle millions of calls with professionalism and results.

While Aircall has been around for nearly as long, its presence on Trustpilot is less than stellar, with a rating of 3.1. When it comes to proven performance and customer satisfaction, Smith.ai's track record is unmatched.

The obvious choice for growing businesses

For growth-minded businesses that value complete call resolution, a live agent network, platform flexibility, white-glove deployment, and a proven reputation that delivers exceptional results, AI Receptionist is the superior choice for your AI customer engagement partner over Aircall AI Voice Agent.