---
title: 'Smart assistants'
summary: 'A Voxbi-built AI voice assistant that takes over an extension and answers calls with an AI model. The full-featured sibling of AI IVRs: customizable greeting, system prompt, knowledge base, and transfer rules.'
section: features
tags:
  - crud
  - telephony
  - ai
  - beta
updated: '2026-08-12'
related_forms:
  - smart_assistant_transfer_templates
---

> A **smart assistant** is a Voxbi-built AI voice assistant that takes over an extension and answers calls with an AI model. Called "Basic assistants" in the UI sidebar, it runs on Voxbi's own infrastructure rather than a third party.

> [!NOTE]
> Smart assistants is a **Beta** feature and is iterating quickly.

## Overview

A smart assistant is the in-house counterpart to [Famulor agents](famulor_agents.md). Both make an AI answer a phone, but differ in what runs under the hood and how much you can tune.

| Aspect | Smart assistant (Basic) | Famulor agent (Advanced) |
|---|---|---|
| **Where the AI runs** | Voxbi's own worker process | Famulor's external platform via API |
| **AI model** | OpenAI Realtime | Pipeline / Speech-to-speech / Dualplex (multiple providers) |
| **Voice options** | A curated handful | Hundreds, with provider choice and tuning |
| **Best for** | Quick assistants, single-language flows | Complex flows, multilingual, fine-grained control |

Pick a smart assistant when you want an AI on an extension without granular tuning. For an even lighter intake-and-transfer setup, use [AI IVRs](ai_ivrs.md).

## What it does

A smart assistant replaces an extension. Where a normal extension rings a user's phone, an assigned smart assistant routes the call to the AI, which answers immediately and handles the call end to end. The caller experience is shaped almost entirely by the initial message, system prompt, and voice, so iterate on those three.

> [!TIP]
> Iterate on the system prompt using **Try it now** before publishing. The browser-mic preview catches problems (the AI talking too much, missing transfer logic, wrong tone) without burning real call minutes.

## See also

- [AI IVRs](ai_ivrs.md) - the simpler sibling for intake and transfer use cases.
- [Famulor agents](famulor_agents.md) - the deeper-configuration alternative.
- [Smart assistant transfer templates](smart_assistant_transfer_templates.md) - the transfer destinations a smart assistant is allowed to use.
- [Extensions](extensions.md) - the assignment target.
- [Contacts](contacts.md) - the data source for the assistant's contact-lookup tool.