Answer Inbound Calls with an AI Voice Bot via IVR

Your AI bots can answer inbound calls too - not just the predictive outbound calls covered in the overview. You route an incoming caller to a bot by adding a Connect to AI Agent step to an inbound IVR flow.

Two things to Set up

Allow the Bot Flow to take inbound calls. Edit the Bot Flow and tick Allow inbound calls. Only flows with this enabled can be selected in the IVR step.
Add the IVR step. In the IVR (flow) builder for your inbound number, add the Connect to AI Agent step (robot icon) wherever you want the bot to pick up.

The "Connect to AI Agent" step

Connect to AI Bot Flow Element under the IVR

Option	What it does
Bot Flow	The bot that answers. Only Bot Flows with Allow inbound calls enabled appear here
Timeout	How long (seconds) to keep trying to connect before giving up
Waiting recording	What the caller hears on a loop while the dialer connects them

The step has two outcomes you connect to the next steps in your flow:

Success: the caller was bridged to the bot
Failure: the selected flow is inactive, or no AI agent answered within the timeout

flowchart TD
  A[Inbound call hits your IVR] --> B[Connect to AI Agent step]
  B --> C[Caller hears the waiting recording]
  C --> D{Bot answers within timeout?}
  D -- Yes --> E[Caller bridged to the bot]
  D -- No / flow inactive --> F[Failure branch]

📘
The Bot knows your caller
If the caller's number matches a lead, the bot is given that lead's context - so it can greet the caller by name and update the lead's disposition at the end of the call. If no lead matches, the call proceeds anonymously

Offer more than one Bot, by priority

To fall back from one bot to another, chain the steps: connect the Failure branch of one Connect to AI Agent step into another one for a different Bot Flow. The dialer tries them in order, so the chain order is your priority. You can also send the final Failure branch to any other IVR step - for example, a human group or a voicemail.

✔️ That's it - inbound callers now reach your AI bots, with a clean fallback path when a bot isn't available.