The call disclosure, and the law behind it

Every phone call your agent answers opens with a short notice, right after the first sentence of your greeting. By default it says:

Just so you know, I'm an AI assistant. This call may be recorded and transcribed, and it's handled by our service providers. You can ask for a person or leave a message at any time.

You can reword it on the agent's Agent tab, under Call disclosure. The Callers hear box below it shows exactly how your greeting and the notice will sound together.

#What you can change

The notice has four parts. Two are required, and two are strongly recommended.

The wording is up to you. For example, "I'm Rivera Plumbing's virtual assistant. Calls are recorded and handled by our service providers. Ask for a person anytime." covers all four parts.

#Why the required parts are required

#Recording and transcription

Every call is transcribed so your agent can understand the caller and so you get a transcript afterward. In the US, about a dozen states, including California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington, require that everyone on a call agree before it's recorded. Telling callers at the start, and letting them carry on or hang up, is how businesses get that agreement.

These laws carry damages for each call, and they're among the most common lawsuits against businesses that record calls. California's, for example, allows $5,000 per violation. Callers can be in any state, whatever state you're in, so the notice plays on every call.

#Service providers

Ladoo uses speech, AI and phone providers to handle each call. Recent lawsuits under California's wiretapping law argue that a company processing a call for a business is a third party listening in without permission. Telling callers up front that service providers handle the call is the plainest defense against that claim, for you and for us.

#Why the recommended parts matter

#Saying it's an AI assistant

There's no single US law that requires this on every call, but a growing number of places require it in some form:

• Colorado requires businesses that use AI to talk with consumers to tell them it's AI, unless that's obvious. A natural-sounding voice usually isn't.
• Maine bars using an AI chatbot in a way that could make a consumer think they're talking to a person, unless it's disclosed.
• Utah requires saying it's AI when the caller asks, and up front in some licensed professions, such as healthcare.
• California bars using a bot to mislead people about being a bot in order to make a sale.
• The European Union requires AI systems that talk with people to tell them, unless it's obvious.

Saying it at the start of every call is the simplest way to meet all of these at once. If you remove it, you're responsible for making sure that's allowed everywhere your callers are.

#Asking for a person or leaving a message

No law requires this line by itself. It's there because callers who know they can reach a person are less likely to hang up, and it tells them what to do if the AI assistant can't help. If you remove it, make sure your agent can still transfer calls to your team or take a message.

#What stays the same

Whatever your notice says, your agent will never claim to be human, and it will always say it's an AI assistant if a caller asks. That's part of the Terms of Service (Section 4.2) and the Acceptable Use Policy, and it can't be turned off.

Website chats show their own notice in the chat window, so this setting only affects phone calls.

For how Ladoo handles callers' data, see How Ladoo Uses AI.