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AI Employees Guide

Table of Contents

  1. What Are AI Employees
  2. The AI Employees List View
  3. Understanding Employee Metrics
  4. Creating a New AI Employee
  5. Employee Status Management
  6. Searching and Filtering
  7. Employee Actions and Operations
  8. Best Practices for AI Employee Management
  9. Troubleshooting Common Issues
  10. Scaling Your AI Team

What Are AI Employees

AI Employees are intelligent virtual agents that handle phone conversations on behalf of your organization. Unlike traditional automated systems that follow rigid scripts, AI employees understand natural language, respond contextually, and adapt to the flow of conversation.

Core Capabilities

Natural Conversation: AI employees engage in fluid dialogue, understanding context, responding to questions, and maintaining conversational coherence throughout each interaction. Multilingual Support: Configure AI employees to speak multiple languages, automatically detecting and responding in the caller’s preferred language. Voice Customization: Each AI employee can have a unique voice, allowing you to match the tone and style to your brand identity or the specific role. Intelligent Behaviors: AI employees can perform actions during calls such as:
  • Transferring calls to human agents when needed
  • Routing to other AI employees with specialized knowledge
  • Scheduling appointments directly on connected calendars
  • Detecting voicemail and responding appropriately
24/7 Availability: AI employees never sleep, take breaks, or call in sick. They are available to handle calls at any time, ensuring you never miss an opportunity.

How AI Employees Differ from Traditional IVR

Traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems force callers through predetermined menu options using keypad inputs. AI employees, in contrast:
  • Understand spoken natural language
  • Do not require callers to “Press 1 for sales”
  • Adapt responses based on conversation context
  • Can handle unexpected questions gracefully
  • Provide a human-like experience that improves caller satisfaction

The AI Employees List View

The AI Employees page presents all your virtual team members in an organized table format. At the top of the page, you will find: Page Title: “AI Employees” clearly identifies the section you are viewing. Create Button: If you have permission to create AI employees, a prominent “Create Employee” button appears in the top right corner.

Summary Metric Cards

Four metric cards provide an overview of your AI team’s status: Total Employees: The count of all AI employees in your organization. This number represents your virtual team size. Working Now: How many AI employees are currently set to Active status and ready to handle calls. Calls Today: The total number of conversations handled by all AI employees since midnight in your organization’s timezone. Team Performance: The average success rate across all AI employees, calculated as a percentage of successful calls versus total calls.

Employee Table

The table displays each AI employee with the following information: Employee Name: The name you assigned to the AI employee. Clicking the name navigates to the employee’s detail page. Status: Indicates whether the employee is Active (ready to handle calls) or Inactive (paused). Language: The primary language and a badge showing how many additional languages are configured. Phone Number: The telephone number assigned to this AI employee, if any. Displayed in a monospace font for clarity. Conversations: A count of total conversations this AI employee has handled. Created: The date when this AI employee was first created. Actions: A menu providing quick access to common operations.

Understanding Employee Metrics

Each metric card on the AI Employees page serves a specific purpose in helping you manage your team.

Total Employees

This is a simple count of all AI employees in your organization. The number helps you understand your team size and capacity. Interpretation tips:
  • More employees typically means more specialized roles
  • Consider whether each employee has a clear purpose
  • Unused employees may indicate configuration cleanup is needed

Working Now

This metric shows how many AI employees are currently active and available to handle calls. The relationship between total employees and working employees is important:
  • If Working Now equals Total Employees, your entire team is operational
  • If Working Now is zero, no AI employees can handle calls currently
  • If Working Now is less than Total, some employees are intentionally paused

Calls Today

This real-time metric updates throughout the day, showing current activity levels. Use this to:
  • Verify that calls are being processed as expected
  • Identify abnormally quiet or busy days early
  • Monitor the impact of campaigns or marketing activities

Team Performance

The average success rate gives you a quick health indicator for your entire AI team. This percentage considers all calls across all employees. What affects team performance:
  • Quality of AI employee configurations
  • Alignment between employee capabilities and call types
  • Call timing and contact availability
  • Technical factors like audio quality

Creating a New AI Employee

Creating an AI employee initiates the process of adding a new virtual team member.

Before You Create

Consider these questions: What is the purpose? Define the specific role this AI employee will fill. Examples include:
  • Inbound customer support
  • Outbound sales qualification
  • Appointment scheduling
  • Information collection
What personality fits? The greeting, tone, and conversation style should match the role and your brand. What languages are needed? Identify all languages this AI employee should support.

Creation Process

  1. Click the Create Employee button on the AI Employees page
  2. You will be taken to a creation form or wizard
  3. Enter the basic information:
    • Name: A descriptive identifier for the AI employee
    • Primary Language: The default language for conversations
  4. Complete the initial setup
  5. The new AI employee appears in your list

After Creation

New AI employees require additional configuration before they are ready for production use. After creation:
  1. Access the employee’s detail page
  2. Configure Personality settings (greeting and prompt)
  3. Set up Language and Voice options
  4. Configure Behavior settings
  5. Add any necessary Integrations
  6. Activate the employee when ready

Employee Status Management

Each AI employee has a status that determines whether they can handle calls.

Active Status

When an AI employee is Active:
  • They are ready to receive and make calls
  • They appear in campaign employee selections
  • They are counted in “Working Now” metrics
  • Their phone number (if assigned) is operational
An Active employee is indicated by a green badge with a pulsing dot, signifying live status.

Inactive Status

When an AI employee is Inactive:
  • They cannot handle any calls
  • They are excluded from campaign operations
  • They do not affect active metrics
  • Their configuration remains preserved
An Inactive employee is shown with a gray badge.

When to Use Each Status

Set to Active when:
  • Configuration is complete and tested
  • You are ready for the employee to handle real calls
  • Returning from a temporary pause
Set to Inactive when:
  • Configuration changes are in progress
  • Seasonal pause is needed
  • Troubleshooting issues
  • Retiring an employee without deleting

Changing Status

Status can be changed through:
  • The AI employee detail page
  • Quick actions in the row menu
  • Configuration updates that may trigger status changes

Searching and Filtering

As your AI team grows, search and filter capabilities become essential.

Search Functionality

The search bar at the top of the employee list allows you to find AI employees by: Name: Enter part or all of an AI employee’s name to filter the list. Phone Number: Search by the assigned telephone number. Search is case-insensitive and matches partial strings, making it easy to find employees quickly.

Using Search Effectively

For organizations with many AI employees:
  • Use consistent naming conventions to make searching intuitive
  • Include role identifiers in names (e.g., “Sales - Enterprise”, “Support - Technical”)
  • Search by function when you remember the role but not the exact name

Sorting

The table can be sorted by various columns:
  • Click column headers to change sort order
  • Default sorting typically shows newest employees first

Employee Actions and Operations

Each row in the AI Employees table includes an actions menu providing quick access to common operations.

Available Actions

Depending on your permissions, the actions menu may include: View Details: Navigate to the AI employee’s full detail page for comprehensive information and configuration. Edit Configuration: Access the settings panels to modify the employee’s configuration. Duplicate: Create a copy of this AI employee as a starting point for a new one with similar settings. Activate/Deactivate: Toggle the employee’s status without navigating away from the list. Delete: Permanently remove the AI employee. This action requires confirmation and cannot be undone.

Performing Actions

  1. Locate the AI employee row
  2. Click the actions menu (three dots icon) on the right side of the row
  3. Select the desired action
  4. Confirm if prompted

Bulk Operations

For managing multiple AI employees simultaneously, consider:
  • Using the search function to locate groups of employees
  • Performing individual actions efficiently with keyboard navigation
  • Planning changes during low-activity periods

Best Practices for AI Employee Management

Naming Conventions

Develop a consistent naming system:
  • Include the role or function in the name
  • Add identifiers for specialized versions (e.g., “Sales Agent - Spanish”)
  • Avoid generic names that become confusing as your team grows
Examples of good names:
  • “Customer Support - General”
  • “Appointment Scheduler - Dental”
  • “Lead Qualifier - Enterprise”
  • “After Hours Support”

Role Specialization

Rather than creating one AI employee to handle everything, consider specialization: Benefits of specialized employees:
  • More focused prompts lead to better performance
  • Easier troubleshooting when issues arise
  • Cleaner analytics per use case
  • Ability to optimize individually
When generalization makes sense:
  • Small organizations with limited call types
  • Initial testing phases
  • Simple use cases with consistent patterns

Regular Review Cycles

Establish a cadence for reviewing AI employee performance: Weekly: Check high-level metrics and identify any immediate issues. Monthly: Review configuration effectiveness and listen to sample calls. Quarterly: Evaluate whether AI employee lineup matches business needs.

Configuration Version Control

Before making significant changes:
  • Document current configuration
  • Consider creating a duplicate for testing
  • Make changes incrementally
  • Monitor performance after each change

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Low Conversation Counts

If an AI employee has fewer conversations than expected:
  1. Verify the status is Active
  2. Check if a phone number is assigned (for inbound)
  3. Confirm the employee is selected in active campaigns (for outbound)
  4. Review call routing configuration

Poor Success Rates

For AI employees with low success rates:
  1. Listen to conversation recordings for insights
  2. Review the greeting and prompt configuration
  3. Check if the voice quality is clear
  4. Verify language settings match your audience
  5. Examine common caller questions and ensure the prompt addresses them

Unexpected Behavior

If an AI employee behaves unexpectedly:
  1. Review recent configuration changes
  2. Check the system prompt for conflicting instructions
  3. Verify integration configurations
  4. Listen to affected conversations for patterns

Cannot Activate Employee

If you are unable to set an employee to Active:
  1. Ensure all required configuration is complete
  2. Verify you have administrator permissions
  3. Check for validation errors in settings
  4. Contact support if issues persist

Scaling Your AI Team

As your organization grows, strategies for scaling your AI employee team become important.

When to Add More Employees

Consider adding new AI employees when:
  • A new use case emerges that differs from existing roles
  • You need language coverage not provided by current employees
  • Campaign scale requires parallel processing capacity
  • You want to A/B test different conversation approaches

Organizational Strategies

By Function: Create employees aligned with departments:
  • Sales team employees
  • Support team employees
  • Scheduling employees
By Language: Dedicate employees to specific language markets:
  • English market team
  • Spanish market team
  • Multilingual overflow team
By Campaign: Create purpose-built employees for specific initiatives:
  • Product launch campaign
  • Seasonal promotion
  • Retention outreach

Maintenance at Scale

With many AI employees:
  • Use naming conventions rigorously
  • Document the purpose of each employee
  • Review inactive employees periodically
  • Consider archiving rather than accumulating unused employees

Summary

AI Employees are the foundation of your Arbol platform experience. By understanding how to create, configure, manage, and optimize your virtual team, you can deliver exceptional voice communication experiences at scale. Start with a focused approach, learn from each interaction, and expand your AI team strategically as your needs evolve.