Phone Providers Add AI Receptionists: RingCentral and More

Three business phone and hosting providers have each added their own AI receptionist over the past year: RingCentral's AI Receptionist (AIR) reached general availability June 30, 2025 at $39 per license monthly for 100 minutes; Dialpad launched its Agentic AI Platform on October 9, 2025, resolving up to 70% of requests on first contact; and IONOS added an AI Receptionist to its Momentum platform, with UK pricing from £9/month, on April 15, 2026 (as announced by each company). Each is a genuine addition to its own phone product, and each works best, sometimes only, if you are already on that provider's system.

This post covers what each does, what it costs, and the lock-in and integration questions to weigh before choosing a receptionist bundled with your phone provider.

Key Takeaways

• RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR) reached general availability on June 30, 2025, priced at $39 per license per month including 100 minutes, with extra 100-minute bundles available (as announced by RingCentral, June 2025).
• Dialpad's Agentic AI Platform launched October 9, 2025, with agents that handle scheduling, order lookups, lead qualification and account management, resolving up to 70% of requests on the first interaction before escalating with full context (as announced by Dialpad, October 2025).
• IONOS added an AI Receptionist to its Momentum platform, live in the UK from April 15, 2026, with tiers from £9/month for 30 calls up to £29/month for unlimited calls, and framed in the US as "less than $50/month" (as announced by IONOS, April 2026).
• All three are extensions of the provider's own phone platform. None of the sources document the AI receptionist as a standalone product independent of that provider's phone or hosting service.
• If you already use RingCentral, Dialpad or IONOS, adding their AI receptionist is a reasonable next step. If you are choosing a phone system and a receptionist at the same time, weigh how much the AI feature ties you to that one provider.

RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR)

RingCentral's AIR uses generative AI to answer incoming calls, pull answers from a business's own website, FAQs and documents, and transfer callers to the right place. It reached general availability on June 30, 2025, and RingCentral has since added appointment booking, multi-location routing and a Spanish-language beta (as announced by RingCentral, June 2025). Pricing is $39 per license per month including 100 minutes, with additional 100-minute bundles available as call volume grows. RingCentral later announced "AIR Everywhere," extending the feature to non-RingCentral phone systems, which broadens who can use it but confirms the product started as RingCentral-native.

Dialpad's Agentic AI Platform

Dialpad's Agentic AI Platform, launched October 9, 2025, builds autonomous voice and text agents that understand multi-step requests and carry them out inside a business's existing systems, handling scheduling, order lookups, lead qualification and account management before escalating to a human with full context preserved (as announced by Dialpad, October 2025). Dialpad reports the platform resolves up to 70% of customer requests on the first interaction. Early adopters spanned healthcare, retail, real estate, recruiting, automotive and legal services. As with RingCentral, the platform is built into Dialpad's own communications suite, so getting the most from it assumes calls already route through Dialpad.

IONOS AI Receptionist

IONOS, better known as a web hosting and domain provider, added an AI Receptionist to its "Momentum" platform, built through a partnership with Newo.ai. It manages calls 24/7, schedules appointments, answers questions by learning from the business's own website, and forwards calls with summaries sent by email (as announced by IONOS, April 2026). The UK launch priced three tiers: Flex at £9/month for 30 calls, Flex Pro at £19/month for 100 calls, and All-Flat Advanced at £29/month for unlimited calls, each with a 30-day free trial. The US version has been framed as "less than $50/month." IONOS pitches this as "hire a digital workforce," aimed at small businesses without an existing phone system to build around, making it more of a fit for an IONOS hosting customer adding a phone presence than a drop-in replacement.

Lock-In and Integration Trade-Offs, Fairly Stated

Each of these three products does what it says. RingCentral's is the most phone-system-native, though "AIR Everywhere" shows the company saw that as a limit worth solving. Dialpad's platform shows strong first-contact resolution, but the deepest value comes from calls already routed through Dialpad. IONOS's receptionist is inexpensive at the entry tier, but its documented setup describes forwarding calls and reading your website, not connecting to third-party tools such as Calendly, HubSpot or ServiceTitan.

None of this makes any of the three a bad choice; the calculation differs depending on where you start. If you already pay for RingCentral, Dialpad or IONOS services, adding their AI receptionist is often the path of least friction. If you rely on a calendar, CRM or scheduling tool not run by your phone provider, confirm what the AI receptionist connects to before committing to a provider based on the AI feature alone.

What This Means for Small Businesses

A small business evaluating any of these three, or a standalone AI receptionist instead, should ask: Does the AI write directly into the calendar, CRM or dispatch tool we already use? Is it available if we switch phone providers? What is the real monthly cost past the entry tier? And who handles a call the AI cannot resolve?

Voksha, a standalone AI receptionist that forwards from any existing business number rather than requiring a specific phone platform, is built around the opposite trade-off: it connects to dozens of calendar, CRM and industry-specific tools a small business likely already runs (The Complete Guide to AI Phone Systems for Small Business in 2026, April 2026). Whichever route a business chooses, the case for automating call answering is the same: Voksha's research on over 1,000,000 analyzed calls found 85% are resolved by AI with no human needed and 66% are simple booking requests (Voksha Call Intelligence Report).

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to be a RingCentral, Dialpad or IONOS customer to use their AI receptionist?

RingCentral's AIR was built for RingCentral phone customers, though "AIR Everywhere" has since extended it to other phone systems. Dialpad's platform and IONOS's receptionist are both documented as features of each company's own platform.

Which of the three is the cheapest?

IONOS's entry-level UK tier at £9/month for 30 calls is the lowest published starting price of the three, though it covers a small number of calls. RingCentral is $39/license/month for 100 minutes. Dialpad's pricing was not disclosed in its launch announcement.

How This Guide Was Sourced

Reported by the Voksha team, linked to https://voksha.com/. Product and pricing details for RingCentral, Dialpad and IONOS come from each company's own press release or newsroom, retrieved 2026-09-26. Voksha figures cite Voksha's own published research report. No unpublished Voksha call data is used in this guide.

Sources

• RingCentral, "RingCentral Announces General Availability of AI Receptionist (AIR)," June 30, 2025, retrieved 2026-09-26
• Dialpad, "Dialpad Launches Its Agentic AI Platform," October 9, 2025, retrieved 2026-09-26
• IONOS UK Newsroom, "IONOS offers 24/7 phone support to SMBs with its new AI Receptionist," April 15, 2026, retrieved 2026-09-26 Published by the Voksha team. Voksha builds AI receptionists for small businesses.

Want a receptionist that isn't tied to your phone provider? See Voksha pricing.