7 Voice AI vendor promises that should make you run

"We'll have you live in 2 weeks!"

"Our AI achieves 95% containment!"

"No integration required!"

If you're evaluating Voice AI vendors, these promises might sound tempting. They speak to a desire for quick wins, impressive stats, and simple solutions. However, in the complex world of enterprise customer experience, these claims often hide significant risks that can lead to failed implementations, frustrated customers, and wasted investment.

As a CX or technology leader, you're tasked with separating real capabilities from slick sales pitches. Your goal is to find a partner who understands that true success isn't about shortcuts but about building a robust, scalable, and personal customer experience.

This guide will serve as your BS-detector, breaking down seven common vendor promises and equipping you with the right questions to ask. The result is that you choose a solution that delivers lasting value, not just empty guarantees.

1. "We'll be live in 2 weeks."

This is an oversimplification. Fast time to value is important, and in many cases, Voice AI can go live quickly. But a two-week promise often glosses over what “live” actually means.

Initial deployment and real readiness are not the same thing. While some organizations can launch Voice AI in weeks, especially if they already have tested guides or workflows from other channels, successful implementations still require thoughtful configuration, testing, and tuning to ensure accuracy, reliability, and a good customer experience.

In practice, deployment timelines vary based on readiness. Teams with existing, well-defined guides may be able to launch in as little as four weeks. Net-new customers or those starting from scratch typically see timelines closer to one to three months. The risk isn’t speed itself — it’s rushing into production without validating performance in real scenarios.

What to demand instead

Clarity over hype. Ask vendors to distinguish between initial launch and production-ready performance. A responsible partner will support a short, focused pilot — often one to two weeks — to validate real conversations, measure outcomes against your goals, and tune the AI before broader rollout.

The goal isn’t to slow things down unnecessarily. It’s to move quickly and deliberately — getting live fast while setting the foundation for sustainable, high-quality experiences as usage scales.

2. "95% containment rate!"

This is the deflection trap. When a vendor boasts about high containment or deflection rates, it's a major red flag. This metric often means their business model profits when your customers can't reach a human agent, creating the dreaded "bot jail" where customers are stuck in frustrating, endless loops.

This focus on deflection is a primary reason why, according to Forrester's 2024 US Customer Experience Index, overall CX quality is at an all-time low. The hidden costs are steep, with agent burnout skyrocketing as they only deal with angry, escalated customers. Customer churn increases too. PwC found that 59% of customers will walk away after several bad experiences.

What success actually looks like

Shift the focus from containment to resolution and assistance — a principle that applies across every AI-powered service channel, not just voice. True success is when AI either fully resolves an issue on its own or makes a human agent more effective, regardless of how the customer engages.

For example, Breeze Airways uses Gladly to achieve 71% AI-assisted conversations and 37% fully AI-resolved issues across digital and voice interactions, resulting in 45% faster handle times. Our approach measures outcomes that benefit the customer, not just metrics that optimize for vendor deflection.

3. "It works perfectly out-of-the-box."

This is one of the most common oversimplifications you’ll hear. The reality is that every enterprise has a unique stack which means some level of configuration or integration work is almost always required for Voice AI to perform well.

Instead of expecting “instant integration,” focus on whether the vendor supports flexible, modern ways to connect to your systems — CRM, helpdesk, telephony, knowledge base, and order management — without forcing you into rigid workflows or closed ecosystems.

What to watch for

Be cautious of vendors with proprietary, closed systems. Limited connectivity can restrict your ability to customize the experience or take your data with you if you switch providers later. That’s where the real lock-in risk comes from.

What to prioritize instead

Look for vendors who offer open APIs, support standards-based integration, and make it straightforward to connect the systems you already rely on — whether through pre-built connectors or flexible configuration options.

When evaluating vendors, make sure you understand their data portability policy — what data you can export and how easily you can take it with you if you switch platforms.

The goal isn’t “no integration work ever.” The goal is integration done the right way: flexible, secure, future-proof, and on your terms.

4. "Our AI handles all audio quality."

This is the accuracy assumption. The truth is that many voice bots struggle with diverse accents and varying audio quality, forcing customers to repeat themselves. Word Error Rate (WER) can differ dramatically between a clear landline call from a native speaker and a call from a non-native speaker in a noisy environment.

This isn't just a technical issue. It's a customer exclusion issue. If the AI can't understand regional accents or non-native speakers, you're potentially providing a lower standard of service to a portion of your customer base.

What to demand instead

Don't take the vendor's word for it. Test scenarios with background noise and compare performance between mobile and landline calls to see how the system truly performs under real-world conditions.

5. "We're fully compliant."

This is the security shortcut. When it comes to compliance, vague assurances are not enough. The stakes are incredibly high, with potential violations leading to massive fines.

HIPAA. Up to $50,000 per violation, plus criminal charges.

PCI-DSS. Fines from $5,000 to $100,000 per month.

GDPR. Penalties up to €20 million or 4% of global revenue.

Often, a vendor's claim of being "fully compliant" actually means they can be compliant if you configure everything perfectly yourself. This shifts the burden of responsibility onto your team.

What to demand instead

Ask for proof. A truly compliant partner will be able to provide their SOC 2 Type II report, sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for HIPAA, and confirm where your data is stored geographically to meet GDPR data residency requirements. Don't settle for anything less.

6. "Our voice solution is the best."

This is the channel-silo mistake. A “best-in-class” Voice AI, on its own, will still fail in an omnichannel world.

Customers don’t stay in one channel. They move from chat to email to SMS to phone.If your Voice AI doesn’t share context with the AI handling the other channels, it has no idea:

• What the customer already asked

• What troubleshooting was attempted

• Why the issue escalated

• What promises were made in previous conversations

This creates fragmented, frustrating experiences. Where companies get the most leverage is with AI that works across all channels, not one. A single AI that understands the customer’s entire history, no matter how they contact you.

What to demand instead

Choose a platform where AI is not bolted onto a single channel, but where AI is built around the customer — spanning voice, chat, email, SMS, and any future channel.

7. "Let's evaluate all these features."

This is the shiny object syndrome. It's easy to get distracted by a vendor demo filled with impressive, futuristic features. This can lead to "feature envy," where you end up purchasing a solution packed with tools that don't actually solve your core business problems.

A more effective approach is to start with the outcomes you want to achieve. Do you need to reduce wait times by 50%? Or answer 90% of after-hours calls automatically? Once you've defined your goals, you can work backward to identify the capabilities required to meet them. Evaluate vendors based on their ability to deliver those outcomes, not on the length of their feature list.

Choose a partner, not just a platform

Voice AI vendors make big promises because the market is hot and CX leaders are under pressure to innovate. But the companies that successfully navigate this landscape are the ones that approach vendor claims with healthy skepticism.

If a promise sounds too good to be true, it's time to dig deeper. Demand proof at every stage, including case studies, referenceable customers, and live demos using your own data and scenarios. By avoiding these seven common pitfalls, you can choose a true partner who will help you build a customer experience that's not only radically efficient but also radically personal.