Agents
An agent is the AI persona that answers calls and chats. It’s the single most important thing you’ll configure — everything else (knowledge, actions, numbers, campaigns) hangs off an agent. One agent works across every channel: inbound phone, website chat, and outbound calls, with one consistent personality.
Where: Dashboard → Agents. Create with New agent; open one to edit it and reach its Knowledge, Actions, Extractors, and Web chat widget tabs.
Creating an agent
Open the form
Agents → New agent. Fill in the fields below and click Save. You can change anything later.
Configure the basics
Every field is explained in Settings reference below. The only required field is a Name; sensible defaults are filled in for the rest.
Save and test
Save, then open the agent’s share link (the ↗ on the card) to talk to it in your browser, or assign
it a phone number.
Settings reference
Name & description
- Name (required) — internal label, e.g. Front Desk or Bright Smile — Reception. Callers don’t hear it. The outbound opener will, however, reference the business name, so keep it presentable.
- Description (optional) — a note to yourself / your team about what this agent is for. Never spoken.
Greeting
The first thing the caller or visitor hears, spoken before the agent listens.
- Keep it short and on-brand: “Thanks for calling Bright Smile Dental — how can I help?”
- For outbound campaigns the greeting is replaced by the campaign’s opening line (which includes the required AI self-identification). See Outbound.
A good greeting names the business and invites the caller to speak. Avoid long menus — let people just talk.
Instructions (system prompt)
The agent’s job description and rules. This is where you shape its behavior and tone.
Best practices (these matter more than length):
- Be specific about the role: “You are the receptionist for Bright Smile Dental. You answer questions about services, hours, and insurance, and you book or reschedule appointments.”
- Set the tone in a few words: “Warm, brief, and professional.”
- Keep it short — 3–6 sentences. Short, concrete instructions outperform long ones.
- Don’t paste your FAQ here — that’s what Knowledge is for. The prompt is the behavior; knowledge is the facts.
- You don’t need to add safety rules. Televox automatically appends guardrails (see How the agent behaves) so the agent stays on topic, never invents prices, and ends calls gracefully — your prompt focuses purely on the job.
Voice
The speaking voice (Deepgram Aura-2, natural and low-latency). Eleven English options:
| Female | Male |
|---|---|
| Thalia (recommended), Andromeda, Luna, Athena, Hera, Helena, Aurora | Orion, Arcas, Apollo, Zeus |
Pick one that matches your brand; you can change it any time and re-test. Full list and guidance: Voices & models.
Model
The LLM that powers the agent’s reasoning and replies:
| Model | When to use |
|---|---|
| GPT-4.1 Mini (recommended default) | Fast and reliable; best at following instructions and calling actions (e.g. booking). Start here. |
| GPT-4.1 Nano | Fastest/cheapest; good for simple Q&A agents. Test booking/actions before trusting it. |
| GPT-4o Mini | Previous default; still solid. |
| GPT-4o | Most capable; slightly slower/costlier — for complex reasoning. |
For most businesses GPT-4.1 Mini is the sweet spot — fast turns and dependable action-calling. More on the trade-offs in Voices & models.
Temperature
How much the wording varies (0–1).
- Lower (≈0.3–0.5) — more consistent, predictable phrasing. Good for scripted/transactional agents.
- Default (0.7) — natural variety without going off-script. A good starting point.
- Higher (≈0.9) — more creative wording; rarely needed for business agents.
Max call length
A hard cap (in minutes, default 15) after which the call ends automatically. A safety net against a stuck call running up cost. Raise it for genuinely long conversations.
Silence timeout
If the caller says nothing for this long (default 120s), the agent gently checks in (“Are you still there?”) and, if still silent, ends the call. Prevents dead air from holding the line open.
Recording
Off by default. Turn it on to record calls for this agent — recordings appear in Call history and the call inspector.
Recording calls may require notifying or getting consent from callers depending on your region’s laws. See Compliance.
Webhook (optional)
A URL Televox can notify with call data (e.g. to push a finished call into your own system). Leave blank if you don’t need it.
How the agent behaves
Beyond your settings, every Televox agent has built-in behavior so it sounds human and stays trustworthy — you don’t configure these, they just work:
- Natural turn-taking & barge-in — a semantic turn-detector decides when you’ve actually finished speaking (not just paused), and you can interrupt the agent and it stops to listen.
- Stays on topic — it answers anything about your business (from instructions + knowledge) and politely declines unrelated requests (jokes, world trivia, math) without being rude.
- Never makes things up — it won’t invent prices, policies, or availability. If it doesn’t know, it says so and offers a follow-up.
- Real actions only — when a task matches a configured action, it actually runs it and reports the real result (it won’t pretend to book).
- Graceful endings — when the conversation is clearly over, it gives a warm goodbye and hangs up instead of looping “anything else?”.
- Holding phrases — while a slower action runs (e.g. checking a calendar), it says a brief filler so there’s no awkward silence.
Managing agents
- Edit — open an agent and change any field; save.
- Share / test — the
↗on the agent card opens a browser voice call (/room?agent=…). Great for demos and QA before going live. - Delete — removes the agent and its knowledge, actions, and history. This can’t be undone.