Replace your IVR with AI that actually resolves calls
Stop routing callers through phone trees nobody wants to navigate. SIMBA Voice Agents understand natural speech, connect to your systems, and handle requests end-to-end — 24/7, including after hours, weekends, and holidays.
Trusted by leading organizations
Beyond IVR
From phone trees to real conversations
No more "press 1 for..."
Callers say what they need in their own words. SIMBA understands intent from natural speech — accents, interruptions, mid-sentence corrections — and acts immediately.
Resolve, don't just route
IVR transfers calls. SIMBA finishes them. Password resets, appointment scheduling, order status, payment processing, and FAQ answers — handled end-to-end without a human.
Answer every call, any hour
No more voicemail boxes that get checked at 9 AM. SIMBA answers live 24/7 — evenings, weekends, holidays — with the same quality as your best daytime agent.
Calls your IVR can't handle — resolved in seconds
Why IVR is dying — and what replaces it
The interactive voice response system was designed in the 1970s for rotary phone infrastructure. Fifty years later, most IVRs still work the same way: a recorded greeting, a branching tree of numbered menus, and a prayer that the caller presses the right button. Industry data tells the story — over 60% of callers who hit an IVR try to zero out to a human within the first 15 seconds, and call abandonment rates for IVR-heavy contact centers routinely exceed 25%.
The core problem is structural. IVR forces callers to translate their intent into a menu option, which means the caller does the work of routing instead of the system. When someone calls to say "I got charged twice and need to reschedule my appointment," no phone tree handles both requests gracefully. The caller either picks one, gets misrouted, or hangs up and tries a different channel. For industries like healthcare and insurance where call volumes are high and caller patience is low, this friction directly translates to lost revenue and lower satisfaction scores.
AI voice agents flip this model. Instead of asking the caller to navigate a menu, the agent listens to what the caller says and determines intent from natural speech. There is no phone tree to maintain, no "press 1 for..." recording to update every time your department structure changes, and no dead-end menus that force callbacks. The conversation just starts — and in most cases, it finishes without a human ever being involved.
The shift is already well underway. Gartner projects that by 2027, over 40% of contact centers will have replaced or augmented their primary IVR with conversational AI. The organizations moving first are the ones with the highest call volumes and the most complex menu trees — exactly the environments where IVR fails hardest.
Migrating from legacy IVR to conversational AI
The biggest misconception about replacing IVR is that it requires a rip-and-replace of your entire phone system. It doesn't. Most SIMBA deployments start with a parallel routing approach: you keep your existing IVR live, forward a percentage of traffic — typically 10–20% — to the AI agent, and compare resolution rates, handle times, and CSAT scores side by side. Once the numbers prove out, you shift more traffic until the IVR handles only edge cases or regulatory disclosures.
The technical migration is simpler than most teams expect. SIMBA connects to your existing phone number via SIP trunk or call forwarding, which means no telephony vendor changes and no number porting. Your AI receptionist inherits the same caller experience — same number, same greeting if you want one — but the conversation that follows is entirely different. Callers speak naturally, the agent resolves their request, and the call ends. No menus, no hold queues, no transfers for routine issues.
Where migration gets more nuanced is in workflow mapping. A mature IVR encodes years of institutional knowledge — which department handles which request, what information needs to be collected, when to escalate. The right approach is to extract these rules, translate them into agent instructions, and test them against real call recordings before going live. Our guide on migrating from a legacy contact center to AI covers the full playbook, including how to handle HIPAA-sensitive healthcare workflows and insurance-specific compliance requirements.
Teams that follow this phased approach typically see first calls handled by AI within five business days, with full IVR replacement within 60–90 days. The cost savings start immediately — IVR sessions that end in a human transfer cost $5–12 per interaction, while AI-resolved calls average under $1 — and compound as containment rates climb past the 60–80% range that most deployments achieve within the first quarter.
Everything your IVR did — and everything it couldn't
One brain across channels
Design your agent once and deploy it everywhere your customers are — chat, phone, email, WhatsApp, and more. The same knowledge base, personality, and workflows power every channel, ensuring a consistent experience.
Built to replace every IVR workflow
Natural language understanding
No DTMF menus, no keyword spotting. Callers speak naturally and the agent understands intent, even with accents, background noise, and mid-sentence corrections.
24/7 after-hours coverage
Every call answered live — evenings, weekends, holidays. Routine requests handled instantly. Urgent matters escalated to on-call staff with full conversation context.
Tool use and resolution
Agents don't just route — they act. Book appointments, process payments, look up orders, update accounts, and file tickets by connecting to your existing systems.
Graceful escalation with context
When a call needs a human, SIMBA transfers with a summary of the conversation, caller intent, and actions already taken. No "can you repeat your account number?"
Deploy in days, not months
No Visio diagrams or call flow consultants. Define agent behavior in plain language, connect your tools, and go live. Most teams are running in under a week.
Sub-second response time
Faster than IVR. No 3-second pauses between menu prompts. Natural turn-taking and interruption handling make conversations feel human.
Voices that callers trust
Expressive, natural voices
Choose from 10,000+ voices or clone your own. Control tone, cadence, and emotion for every interaction. Our voices are indistinguishable from humans.
Sub-second latency
Industry-leading response times under 1 second. Natural turn-taking and interruption handling make conversations feel real.
Multilingual support
Deploy agents in multiple languages with automatic language detection and seamless switching mid-conversation.
Enterprise-grade security and infrastructure
Enterprise-level data protection
End-to-end encryption, SOC 2 Type II certification, zero retention modes, and regional data residency options to keep your data secure.
Granular team permissions
Role-based access controls, workspace-level isolation, and audit trails to manage your team securely at scale.
Elevated support and custom deployments
Dedicated account management, custom SLAs, priority support queues, and VPC deployment options for enterprise customers.
Replace your IVR this week
Create an agent on the web
Set up your first AI agent in just a few minutes using our web platform. Upload your SOPs, knowledge base, and configure workflows — no coding required.
Build via API
Build, launch, and scale agents using our powerful APIs and SDKs. Available in JavaScript, Python, Swift, and more.