Creating a Voice AI Employee

This guide explains how to set up a Voice AI Employee -- an AI Employee that communicates naturally, supports multiple languages, executes complex actions, and intelligently transfers calls to human agents for escalation or handoff.

Key Capabilities

• Multilingual conversations -- Supports 30+ languages, enabling seamless switching between languages without losing context.
• Low latency -- Built to deliver real-time, natural speech interactions without delay.
• Natural voice -- Ema's voice library includes empathetic, warm, and human-like tones designed for clarity and emotionally intelligent responses.
• Complex action handling -- Your Voice AI Employee can perform complex actions end to end, from deep knowledge search to creating ServiceNow tickets or sending emails.
• Security and compliance -- Includes data masking and data protection options for transcripts, audio, and agent data. You can choose whether to store call data or disable it entirely.
• Call forwarding -- Transfer calls to a specified human agent for escalation or handoff.

Setting Up Your Voice AI Employee

Step 1: Start from the Voice AI Employee Starter Template

Select the Voice AI Employee Starter Template from the templates. This template provides sample instructions in the configuration page and an empty workflow to set up your AI Employee.

Step 2: Configure Your Voice AI Employee

Voice Settings

Choose a voice that fits your brand or use case from Ema's voice library.

Conversational Behaviors

Configure the following sections to define how your Voice AI Employee communicates:

1. How should the call start? -- Set a short, friendly opening line that plays when the caller connects. By default the greeting is non-interruptible; use the Allow callers to interrupt the greeting checkbox next to the field if you want callers in a hurry to be able to speak over it.

   Best practices for the opening greeting:

   • Identify the organization
   • Introduce the assistant
   • Ask how you can help
   • Keep the greeting short

   Example: "Hello, you've reached HR Services at [company name]. I am [voice_name], your virtual HR assistant."

2. Define your AI Employee's identity and purpose -- Describe how the AI behaves throughout the conversation. You should define:

   • Who the Voice AI represents (identity)
   • Its responsibilities (role)
   • Communication style (guiding principles)
   • Conversation structure (conversation flow)
   • Specific pronunciation rules (language handling)

   If you prefer to start from a draft, click Generate in the top-right of the field. Ema prompts you for a couple of lines describing what the Voice AI Employee should do and uses that to produce a starting identity and purpose that you can refine.

   A recommended structure for this section:

   ## Identity
   You are Ema, the HR virtual assistant for XYZ Corporation.
   
   ## Role
   Assist employees with HR-related questions such as benefits, payroll,
   leave balances, and employee verification.
   
   ## Guiding Principles
   Communicate clearly and professionally.
   Be friendly and patient.
   Ask clarifying questions when requests are unclear.
   
   ## Language Handling
   Always respond in the caller's language.
   If the caller switches languages, continue in that language.
   
   ## Conversation Flow
   1. Greet the employee
   2. Identify the request
   3. Verify the employee if required
   4. Perform the requested action
   5. Confirm resolution
   6. Escalate if necessary

3. Define what actions your AI Employee can perform -- List the actions available to the Voice AI Employee. Actions typically correspond to the capabilities inside the workflow -- primarily the intents it can handle. Each action should describe the scenario, when the action should trigger, and the expected outcome.

   Click Generate in the top-right of the field to have Ema inspect the current workflow and draft the action list from the intents and tools it finds. Review the generated entries and edit them to match your exact triggers and parameters.

   Example:

   Case 1: Employee Identification
   Trigger When: The caller provides their Employee ID.
   Instruction: "Intent" for the tool call: "Employee Identification"
   Required parameters: { "emp_id": "" }
   
   Case 2: Create a Case
   Trigger When: The caller says they want to create a case.
   Instruction: "Intent" for the tool call: "Create a case"
   Required parameters: { "inquiry": "" }

4. When should the call end? -- Define when the AI Employee should hang up, such as after confirming task completion, user satisfaction, or a polite goodbye.

Advanced Settings

1. Data storage settings -- Manage how transcripts and audio recordings are stored. You can enable or disable storage based on compliance or project needs.
2. Voice activity detection settings -- Configure detection settings to control when the AI Employee listens and responds during a call. Enable Bias caller transcription to primary language here to improve speech-to-text accuracy when most callers speak the AI Employee's primary language; leave it off for deployments where callers regularly speak other languages.
3. Call forwarding settings -- Set up call forwarding to a human number for escalation.

AI Employee Settings

These function the same way as any other AI Employee, allowing you to add data sources, select the EmaFusion™ models, and more.

Phone Number Settings

Connect a phone number only if you want to enable real inbound calling for this AI Employee.

Step 3: Build the Workflow

This functions the same way as any other AI Employee. Refer to Creating Your First Workflow for guidance.

Step 4: Test the Voice AI Employee

1. Enable your AI Employee.
2. Click Test Voice AI Employee to simulate a phone call.
3. View real-time call transcriptions.