What Happens When Voice AI Is Off

Turning off Voice AI stops the AI receptionist from answering calls. Here's what that means for your callers, your bookings, and your business.

Calls are no longer answered by the AI

When Voice AI is disabled, inbound calls to the AI receptionist's phone number are not handled by Speako. What happens next depends on how your phone number is set up:

  • If you have a fallback phone number configured: Calls may be forwarded to that number, allowing a person to answer instead.
  • If no fallback is set: The outcome depends on your phone carrier or call forwarding settings outside of Speako. The call may ring unanswered, go to voicemail, or receive a standard carrier message.

Existing bookings are not affected

Turning off Voice AI does not cancel or change any bookings that have already been made. Customers with upcoming reservations or appointments will not be notified — their bookings remain confirmed and visible in your calendar.

New bookings via voice are paused

While Voice AI is off, customers cannot make new bookings by calling the AI. However, if your online booking page is enabled, customers can still book online through their browser without calling.

Online booking is independent

The online booking page has its own on/off control, separate from the Voice AI toggle. Turning off Voice AI does not automatically disable online booking. If you want to pause all new bookings entirely, you need to disable both:

  • Voice AI toggle (in Settings)
  • Online booking (in the Booking Page settings)

Dashboard bookings still work

You and your team can still create and manage bookings manually from the dashboard while Voice AI is off. The AI toggle only affects inbound call handling.

When to use this

Turning off Voice AI is appropriate when:

  • You're reconfiguring the AI and don't want to risk live calls during the change.
  • Your business is temporarily closed and you don't want the AI to mislead callers.
  • You're troubleshooting call behaviour and want to test without live calls interfering.
  • You want to revert to fully human-answered calls for a period.

💡 Tip: If you're temporarily closed (e.g. for a holiday period), consider leaving Voice AI on with an updated after-hours greeting that explains the closure. This is often better for callers than having the call go unanswered.

⚠️ Important: Make sure you communicate any changes in call handling to your team. If calls are expected to forward to a staff member's phone when Voice AI is off, confirm the fallback number is correct and that person is available.