ElevenLabs has launched Reception, an AI receptionist designed for small businesses that can answer incoming calls, respond to questions about a business and book appointments. Built on the company’s ElevenAgents platform, Reception is designed to handle calls while employees are busy, during peak periods and after business hours.
The company announced Reception on September 16, 2026, positioning it as a packaged voice-agent product that businesses can set up without technical expertise. According to ElevenLabs, setup can be completed in minutes using the business’s website as a source of information.
Reception is aimed at businesses where unanswered calls can interrupt ongoing work or create delays in scheduling. Its initial use cases include home services, professional services, real estate, salons and other appointment-driven businesses.
Quick Summary
- ElevenLabs launched Reception, an AI receptionist designed primarily for small businesses.
- Reception is built on ElevenAgents and uses voice AI to handle incoming business calls.
- It can answer questions about services, hours and other business information.
- The system can schedule appointments by checking availability and coordinating calendars.
- Reception supports businesses that need call handling during busy periods or outside normal operating hours.
- The product extends ElevenLabs’ voice technology into a practical business automation and customer-service workflow.
- The article fits naturally into an AI agents, voice AI and AI receptionist content cluster.
What Reception Can Do?
Reception goes beyond simply answering a phone call.
The AI receptionist can respond to questions about a company’s services, hours and location. Callers can ask questions in their own words, while the system uses ElevenLabs’ voice technology to conduct the conversation.
Businesses can also control when Reception takes calls. Teams can answer calls first and allow the AI receptionist to step in when nobody is available, or configure it to handle calls after closing.
The service can work with an existing business number through call forwarding or use a dedicated number, according to ElevenLabs.
This makes Reception different from a basic voicemail replacement. The system is intended to understand the caller’s request and move the interaction toward a useful business action.
Reception Can Turn Calls Into Appointments
Appointment scheduling is one of the central capabilities of the new product.
Reception can determine what a caller needs, answer follow-up questions, check staff availability and book an appointment while the caller is still on the phone. Calendar integrations keep scheduled appointments in one place.
For example, a home-services company could use the system to schedule a service visit while technicians are working in the field. A salon could use it to book or reschedule appointments while staff are serving customers.
The official Reception website also describes a connected booking page, allowing customers to schedule online while keeping the booking information synchronized with the receptionist’s workflow.
After calls, businesses can access summaries, transcripts and recordings. This gives staff information about what happened during a conversation without requiring them to listen to every call from beginning to end.
Built on ElevenAgents
Reception is built on ElevenAgents, ElevenLabs’ platform for creating and deploying conversational voice agents.
The significance of this architecture is that Reception is being presented as a specialized application of ElevenAgents rather than as an isolated answering-service product. The underlying platform provides the voice and agent orchestration components, while Reception packages them around a specific small-business workflow.
The product website says Reception can also route calls according to business rules and team availability. Businesses can configure when employees answer first and when the AI should take over.
Reception also supports multiple locations, allowing businesses with several offices to use a shared receptionist workflow while routing calls according to location.
Multilingual Voice Support
Voice interaction is another important part of the product.
ElevenLabs says Reception supports English, Spanish and more than 70 additional languages, allowing businesses to communicate with callers across a wide range of languages and accents.
This capability builds on ElevenLabs’ broader focus on synthetic speech and conversational voice technology. Rather than relying on a traditional menu-based phone tree, Reception is designed around natural-language conversations.
The company says its voice technology is intended to make interactions sound more natural, although individual call quality can depend on the conversation, language and business configuration.
Reception Pricing and Availability
Reception is available through its dedicated product website and offers a 14-day free trial without requiring a credit card, according to the current pricing information.
The currently listed monthly plans include:
| Plan | Monthly price | Included phone minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial | $0 | 30 minutes |
| Basic | $29/month | 75 minutes |
| Plus | $79/month | 275 minutes |
| Premium | $199/month | 1,000 minutes |
Paid plans also differ in the number of phone numbers, simultaneous calls and integrations they support. The Basic plan lists Google Calendar and Zapier integrations, while higher tiers add capabilities such as webhooks and multi-location support.
Reception’s website currently states that businesses outside the United States may require additional setup to connect an existing phone number. It also says the service is available globally.
Which Businesses Can Use Reception?
ElevenLabs is targeting Reception at businesses where phone calls frequently involve customer questions, lead qualification, scheduling or appointment management.
The company specifically highlights:
- Home services: Plumbing, electrical, HVAC and other field-service businesses
- Professional services: Customer inquiries and consultation scheduling
- Real estate: Listing questions and property-viewing appointments
- Salons and studios: Appointment booking and rescheduling
- Automotive: Service and repair calls
- Clinics: Scheduling and routine customer or patient inquiries
- Hospitality: Questions about hours, directions, menus and amenities
The official product site also lists legal, IT, wellness, veterinary and other business applications.
For healthcare-related deployments, however, an important limitation applies: Reception’s current product page says Reception itself does not currently support HIPAA compliance, while the broader ElevenAgents platform can support HIPAA-compliant deployments for eligible customers under the appropriate arrangements.
That distinction is important for businesses considering Reception for calls involving protected health information.
Reception Expands ElevenLabs Beyond Voice Generation
The Reception launch represents a shift in how ElevenLabs is packaging its voice technology.
Rather than providing businesses with only speech generation or developer-facing voice infrastructure, the company is offering a complete workflow around a specific business task: answering inbound calls and converting them into appointments or other actions.
The product combines voice AI, agent orchestration, scheduling, routing and business-specific information into a single service.
For small businesses, the practical focus is therefore less about generating synthetic speech and more about allowing an AI agent to handle a complete interaction from the initial phone call through to a scheduled appointment.
With Reception, ElevenLabs is applying its voice-agent technology to one of the most established business communication workflows: the telephone receptionist, but with the system able to answer questions, follow business rules and take scheduling actions rather than simply forwarding or recording calls.
Also Read –
ElevenCreative by ElevenLabs: AI Platform for Voice, Music and Video
ElevenLabs Music Finetunes: Train AI to Generate Music
Expressive Mode for ElevenAgents: Emotion-Aware Voice AI
Sources
- ElevenLabs — Introducing Reception, by ElevenAgents
- Reception — Official AI Receptionist Product Page
- ElevenLabs Reception — Product and Pricing Page
