Can an AI agent make outbound sales calls?
RavinaroWill you build an outbound cold-calling agent?
No, and this is one of the few things we decline outright. The agents we build answer people who have already contacted you.
Using one to call purchased, scraped, or otherwise unconsented lists is not permitted under our terms, and doing it will get the agent shut off.
What does the law require for outbound AI calls?
In the United States, outbound calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice generally require prior express written consent under the TCPA, and the penalties are per call. The EU and the UAE apply their own consent rules with a similar shape.
"Per call" is the part that catches people out. A list of ten thousand numbers is not one compliance risk, it is ten thousand of them. This is general information rather than legal advice.
Isn't this just being cautious?
Partly, and partly self-interest we are being open about. Outbound AI calling to cold lists gets numbers flagged and blocked, and it poisons the shared telephony infrastructure that every other agent depends on.
One customer's cold-calling campaign can degrade deliverability for clients who never did anything wrong. That is not a risk worth taking on someone else's behalf.
What can an agent do instead?
Plenty, as long as the person opted in. Following up with someone who filled in your form. Confirming an appointment they booked. Reminding them about a visit. Answering the callback they asked for.
The distinction is consent, not direction. Follow-up to people who raised their hand is where most of the value was anyway — those conversations convert several times better than any cold list.
Sources
The rules quoted above come from the primary sources below. They are the law itself, not a summary of it — worth reading before you rely on anything here. This page is general information, not legal advice.
- Telecommunicatiewet, Article 11.7 (in force 1 July 2021) — Article 11.7(1) bans unsolicited automated calling without demonstrable prior consent; 11.7(2) extends the same prior-consent rule to calls placed by other means to natural persons.
- ACM — stricter telemarketing rules from 1 July — The Dutch regulator for telemarketing is the Autoriteit Consument & Markt. Consumers and small businesses may only be called with explicit consent, and the caller must be able to prove it.
- Florida Statutes § 934.03 — interception of communications — Recording is lawful under § 934.03(2)(d) only where every party to the call has given prior consent. Florida is an all-party consent state.