What is Milo and how does it work
A friendly AI receptionist that answers your business phone, 24/7.
Milo is an AI receptionist that picks up your business phone around the clock, greets callers in your brand's voice, answers common questions, and takes action — all without you having to lift a finger.
In one sentence
Milo is a phone receptionist powered by AI: it answers calls, understands what the caller needs, and handles it — whether that's booking an appointment, passing a message along, or just answering a question about your business hours.
What Milo can do
Milo handles the kinds of calls that used to require a full-time front-desk person:
- Answer questions — anything you've taught it through your script or knowledge base, from opening hours to parking directions.
- Book appointments — when you connect Google Calendar, Milo checks your real availability and confirms bookings live on the call. Book appointment
- Transfer callers — Milo can warm-transfer to you or a team member when the situation calls for it. Transfer to human
- Capture leads — name, number, reason for calling — so no inquiry slips through the cracks.
- Send follow-up SMS — after a call, Milo can text the caller a summary, a link, or a confirmation.
Milo is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It doesn't go on lunch break, and it doesn't put people on hold.
What Milo can't do (yet)
Milo is great at structured conversations, but there are things it isn't built for right now:
- Complex negotiations or emotional support calls — if a caller is distressed or the situation requires human judgement, Milo will offer to transfer or take a message.
- Outbound campaigns — Milo answers inbound calls; it doesn't dial out to lists of contacts.
- Video or chat — Milo is voice-only for now.
If a caller's need falls outside what Milo knows, it says so honestly and offers an alternative — it never makes up an answer.
How it works under the hood
You don't need to understand any of this to use Milo — but some customers find it reassuring to know what's happening when someone calls.
When a call comes in to your Milo number, here's the sequence:
- The call is answered within one or two rings.
- Milo greets the caller using the script you wrote — with the voice you chose.
- The caller speaks. Milo transcribes the speech in real time and decides what to do next.
- If the caller asks a question, Milo searches your knowledge base for the right answer. Search knowledge base
- If an action is needed (booking, transferring, sending an SMS), Milo executes it mid-call.
- After the call ends, a summary is saved to your dashboard and you get a notification.
The whole thing typically feels as natural as speaking to a calm, well-informed human — because the AI is designed to handle interruptions, accents, and messy real-world conversations, not just clean test cases.