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An inbound AI agent is a voice AI agent that answers incoming calls to a phone number you (or your client) own. Common use cases include AI receptionists for service businesses, lead-capture front-lines for high-volume callers, after-hours coverage when human staff are unavailable, and full call deflection so human agents can focus on the conversations that need them.

Voice-first capture

The AI answers, qualifies, and captures contact info on every inbound call.

Up to 1,000 calls in parallel

No more busy signals, no more voicemails — every caller gets through.

Recovers the hangups

Stale Recovery + Call Back catch leads who disconnect before capture completes.
This page covers the inbound-specific setup. The script methodology, conversion principles, and the four-step structure that go into your agent’s prompt are universal — they live on the Build a Script page, and we recommend reading that first if you haven’t already. The PulsyAI advantage for inbound is the combination of methodology plus a stack of inbound-specific features that together produce the conversion numbers we publish.
Before you start: Read Build a Script end-to-end. The eight principles on that page — short scripts, fast capture, never repeating user information, Whisper post-call correction, inline knowledge base, the pre-call intro message, short sentences, and stale conversation recovery — are the difference between an inbound agent that books 92% of qualified callers and one that gets hung up on. This implementation guide assumes you’ve drafted a script following that methodology.

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The inbound conversion stack

PulsyAI inbound agents combine four features that work together to maximize lead capture from every call:

1. Pre-call intro voice recording

A short human voice plays before the AI picks up, psychologically priming the caller for the AI handoff. Configured in Agent Settings.

2. The four-step PulsyAI script

Greeting with virtual assistant disclosure, fast need identification, immediate contact capture without read-back, and SMS verification closure. See Build a Script for the full methodology.

3. Whisper + Verify User Information

Live STT errors corrected automatically post-call, with an optional SMS sent to the caller for any remaining corrections. Configured in SMS Configuration.

4. Stale Conversation Recovery

Automatic SMS follow-up to leads who hang up before completing the capture, using the caller ID as the fallback contact point. See Stale Conversations.
Here is how the full inbound flow runs end-to-end, from the moment the caller dials in to the moment the lead lands in the client’s system of record: The yellow-highlighted nodes are the PulsyAI-specific differentiators that make this stack convert better than a generic voice AI setup — the intro message that primes the caller, the Whisper correction layer that lets the agent skip read-backs without losing accuracy, the SMS verification that closes the accuracy loop, and the stale recovery that catches the hangups before lead capture completes.

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Setup walkthrough

Assign a phone number

Every inbound agent needs a phone number that callers can dial. PulsyAI supports four ways to bring a number into your account:

Purchase in-app

Buy a new number directly from PulsyAI. Note that numbers purchased in-app are inbound-only for security reasons.

Import from Twilio

Bring a number you already own on Twilio.

Import from Telnyx

Bring a number you already own on Telnyx.

Import via SIP

Connect a SIP trunk if you operate your own telephony infrastructure.
Once a number is in your account, assign it to your inbound agent. For full details on each option, see the Phone Numbers page.

Build the agent and paste your script

Inside your agent builder, create a new agent of type Inbound. Paste the script you drafted using the Build a Script methodology into the agent’s prompt.The four-step structure (greeting → need identification → capture → closure) applies as-is for inbound. Keep the greeting in the exact PulsyAI pattern — "Hello, you're online with Luna the virtual assistant from {company_name}. How can I help you today?" — without a comma after “virtual assistant”, since this is the configuration that performs best in production.
If your client’s knowledge base fits inline in the prompt (under approximately 100 pages of equivalent text), include it directly in the prompt below the closure section to avoid function-call latency. For larger knowledge bases, use the dedicated Knowledge Base section instead.

Upload the pre-call intro voice recording

The pre-call intro message is one of the highest-ROI features for inbound agents specifically — it doesn’t apply to outbound or SMS because those don’t have the same “caller about to hear an AI for the first time” moment.In the agent settings, upload a 10-15 second recording of a human voice that plays the instant the call connects, before the AI greeting. Something like:
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Why it works — three purposes in one recording:

Primes the caller

Sets the expectation of an AI handoff — no surprise factor when the agent picks up.

Reinforces legitimacy

Confirms there’s a real business on the other end of the line.

Promises a human callback

Reduces resistance to engaging with the AI for the initial intake.
The combination of the pre-call human voice and the explicit human callback promise produces measurably higher conversion than either alone. Resellers who skip this step typically see a measurable drop in conversation duration past the greeting.For setup details and recording requirements, see Agent Settings.

Configure Verify User Information

Verify User Information is the SMS-based safety net that catches any errors that slipped through during the call — even after Whisper post-call correction. It’s a separate layer from the “never repeat user information” principle, which is enforced inside your agent’s prompt (see Build a Script).How the two layers work together:
  1. Inside your prompt, you instruct the agent to never read user information back out loud during the call. This is a script-level directive — the agent simply acknowledges captures with “noted” or “registered” instead of reading the info back. For the full reasoning behind this directive, see Principle 3: Never repeat user information back in the Build a Script methodology. For a working example of how to phrase the directive inside an agent prompt, see the PulsyAI Plumber example script — its Step 3 demonstrates the full capture sequence with the “never repeat” instructions inline.
  2. After the call ends, Whisper corrects any STT errors in the recorded audio and updates the captured info with the corrected version.
  3. With Verify User Information enabled, the caller then receives an SMS summarizing the final captured information.
  4. If anything is still wrong, the caller replies to the SMS with the correction and the data is fixed automatically in your client’s CRM.
For inbound agents this is essentially mandatory — it’s what closes the accuracy loop after Whisper. The configurable time delay also ensures the SMS sends even if some captured information is missing, so the partial data still reaches the client’s CRM with whatever was collected.
For configuration details, see SMS Configuration.

Configure Call Back and Stale Conversation Recovery

For inbound voice agents, two integrations work together to recover leads who didn’t complete the capture flow during the live call.Call Back — the fallback triggerOpen your agent’s Integrations tab and configure Call Back. This is the integration that triggers the fallback when your condition fires (for inbound this is typically “the agent did not collect a phone number or email before the call ended”). In the Call Back settings, you choose the action:

SMS Agent action

Send an SMS to follow up. The dropdown lets you select any SMS AI agent on your account, OR the current inbound voice agent itself (which uses the same phone number for the SMS fallback, with the script and configuration shared from the voice agent).

Phone agent action

The AI calls back the lead to finish the conversation by voice instead of SMS.
For inbound speed-to-lead and missed-capture recovery, the SMS Agent action typically outperforms the Phone agent action — leads who already hung up once are less likely to answer a second call but will often respond to a text. For full Call Back configuration details, see the dedicated Call Back page.Stale Conversation Recovery — the relaunch sequenceOnce Call Back has sent the initial fallback SMS, Stale Conversation Recovery handles the automatic retries if the lead doesn’t respond. Configure it in the same Integrations tab.The PulsyAI recommendation for inbound:

Push delay

Push the partial information to your client’s CRM relatively quickly (a few minutes) so the human team is aware of the incomplete lead.

Relaunch delay

5 minutes after the conversation goes stale.

Max attempts

3 attempts at 5-minute intervals, covering the “hot lead window” of ~15 minutes after the disconnect.
For inbound specifically, the caller ID detected by the telephony layer serves as the fallback contact point — so even if the caller hangs up before saying their phone number out loud, the Call Back SMS still reaches the right phone.
The full configuration guide lives on the dedicated Stale Conversations page.

Connect integrations and test

The last step is wiring up where the captured leads should land. Inbound agents typically integrate with:

CRM connectors

Send lead data directly into your client’s CRM (HubSpot, GoHighLevel, etc.).

Webhooks

Custom destinations for clients with bespoke systems.

Email or Slack

Simple notification channels for smaller operations.
For the full list of available integrations and setup guides, see the Integrations section.
Final test: place a test call to the agent’s phone number, run through the full flow as if you were a caller, and verify three things:
  1. The captured data lands correctly in the configured destination.
  2. The SMS verification message arrives within seconds of the call ending.
  3. If you deliberately hang up before completing capture, the stale recovery SMS arrives at the expected interval.

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Common inbound use cases

The voicemail replacement

The no-brainer pitch. During business hours, the agent doesn’t replace anyone — it only picks up the calls that would have gone to voicemail after 3-4 rings. The client keeps their phone setup as-is. Since most callers hang up rather than leave a voicemail, the AI captures leads that would have been lost entirely, then notifies a human representative immediately. The easiest sale for AI-skeptical clients.

Receptionist overflow

The AI supports existing receptionists rather than replacing them. Human receptionists can only take one call at a time — when they’re busy, the next caller goes to voicemail or gets a busy signal. PulsyAI inbound agents handle up to 1,000 simultaneous calls and pick up the overflow seamlessly. The framing that closes deals: “we’re not replacing your team — we’re making sure they never miss another call.”

AI receptionist (full migration)

For service businesses without an existing receptionist, or those ready to fully migrate phone intake to AI. Plumbing, HVAC, dental, legal — anywhere a missed call equals a lost lead. The agent handles initial intake and books the human callback.

After-hours coverage

The agent answers when the human team is offline, captures the lead, and sends everything to the CRM for the next-day follow-up. Same implementation as during-hours, routed via the client’s carrier scheduling.

High-volume campaign capture

Marketing campaigns generate spikes the human team can’t absorb. The agent takes the overflow. Particularly useful for campaigns generating hundreds or thousands of inbound calls in short windows — TV spots, viral social posts, mass SMS blasts.

Call deflection for repetitive queries

Hours of operation, pricing questions, service areas — handled by the agent with the inline knowledge base, freeing the human team for the calls that actually need them.

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Next step

Build an Outbound AI Agent

The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. The implementation guide for outbound agents — speed-to-lead, the greeting variant, Auto Callback, and SMS fallback. 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Build an SMS AI Agent

The implementation guide for SMS agents — text-only nuances, conversation cadence, and stale recovery as a core feature.