The four things that decide behaviour
The prompt is the instructions. It is the largest influence on what the agent actually does, and most problems are prompt problems. The voice is how it sounds, including language and speaking speed. Skills are discrete abilities you switch on, such as transferring a call, booking an appointment, or texting during the conversation. An agent without skills can only talk. Settings are the machinery underneath, such as which models run the conversation and how long the agent waits before deciding you have stopped speaking. Everything you configure falls into one of those four.Inbound and outbound are the same object
There is no separate inbound agent type. An agent becomes inbound when a number points at it, and outbound when something places a call through it. The same agent can do both. In practice you usually want different ones, because the opening line of a call you placed and a call you received have almost nothing in common.What an agent produces
Every conversation leaves a record: a transcript, an outcome, timings, and whatever structured information you asked the agent to extract. That record is the point. An agent that handles calls but tells you nothing about them is a call centre with worse reporting.Where to go next
- What the agent says for how the prompt, voice and skills interact.
- How a call runs for what happens between the caller speaking and the agent replying.
- What happens after a call for turning conversations into data.
- Agents for the settings themselves.