Buyer's Guide

How to choose an AI voice receptionist

There are three real options — phone answering bots, website chat, and on-site voice agents — and they solve different problems. The right one depends on one thing: where your enquiries actually start. Here's the honest breakdown, including where Maya fits and where it doesn't.

Phone answering bots

What it is: AI that answers your phone line and takes calls or messages (e.g. Rosie, NextPhone, My AI Front Desk).

Best for: Businesses whose enquiries come by phone — trades, clinics taking calls, services with a published number.

Watch for: They answer the phone, not your website. If most of your enquiries start on your site, a phone bot never sees them.

Website chat widgets

What it is: Text chat on your site, human-staffed or AI (e.g. Intercom Fin, Ada, live-chat tools).

Best for: Businesses with a support team online in business hours, whose visitors are happy typing.

Watch for: Text-only and often priced per resolution, which can climb into four figures a month at volume. After hours it usually falls back to a form.

On-site voice agents

What it is: A voice AI that lives on your website — visitors speak and it answers out loud, and it acts on the page (e.g. Maya).

Best for: Businesses whose visitors arrive on the website (often after hours, often mobile, often other languages) and leave if no one engages.

Watch for: Fewer options exist in this newer category; check that it truly acts (navigates, captures, books) rather than only talking, and that pricing is predictable, not metered per minute.

What are the main types of AI receptionist?

There are three: phone answering bots (answer your phone line), website chat widgets (text on your site), and on-site voice agents (visitors speak to your website and it answers out loud and acts). Which is right depends on where your enquiries actually start — the phone, or your website. Phone answering bots: AI that answers your phone line and takes calls or messages (e.g. Rosie, NextPhone, My AI Front Desk). Best for: Businesses whose enquiries come by phone — trades, clinics taking calls, services with a published number. Watch for: They answer the phone, not your website. If most of your enquiries start on your site, a phone bot never sees them. Website chat widgets: Text chat on your site, human-staffed or AI (e.g. Intercom Fin, Ada, live-chat tools). Best for: Businesses with a support team online in business hours, whose visitors are happy typing. Watch for: Text-only and often priced per resolution, which can climb into four figures a month at volume. After hours it usually falls back to a form. On-site voice agents: A voice AI that lives on your website — visitors speak and it answers out loud, and it acts on the page (e.g. Maya). Best for: Businesses whose visitors arrive on the website (often after hours, often mobile, often other languages) and leave if no one engages. Watch for: Fewer options exist in this newer category; check that it truly acts (navigates, captures, books) rather than only talking, and that pricing is predictable, not metered per minute.

How do I choose the right one for my business?

Start with one question: where do your enquiries begin? If they come by phone, a phone answering bot fits. If they begin on your website — and for most modern businesses they do, often after hours and on mobile — you want something on the site itself. From there: does it act (navigate, capture leads, book) or just reply? Does it handle your visitors' languages? Is the price predictable, or metered so it climbs with use? Those three questions separate the options quickly.

What should I avoid when choosing?

Two traps. First, per-resolution or per-minute pricing that looks cheap upfront but scales into a large, unpredictable bill as you grow — predictable pricing is safer to budget. Second, tools that only reply and can't act: answering a question is table stakes; navigating the visitor, capturing the lead, and booking the appointment is what actually recovers revenue. Also insist on trying it live before you pay — if a vendor won't let you talk to their product, that's a signal.

Where does Maya fit?

Maya is an AI front office built around an on-site voice agent: visitors speak to it (or type) on your website and it greets them in their own language — 70+ languages by voice, hearing what they speak and answering out loud in it — navigates the page for them, captures leads, and books appointments, priced predictably by plan. It fits businesses whose visitors arrive on the site — after hours, on mobile, in different languages — and were leaving unanswered. A caller reaches the same Maya too, on the Reception plan, so a business that gets calls AND website visitors is exactly the fit. The honest test is to talk to it live on trymaya.live before deciding.

If your enquiries start on your website, talk to an on-site voice agent before you decide — Maya answers live on our homepage. More: what an AI voice receptionist is · vs. live chat.