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Perplexity (Sonar Pro)June 6, 2026PolyAI mentioned

What are the best ai voice agent?

Full AI Response

The “best” AI voice agent depends heavily on your use case (enterprise contact center, developer platform, or quick no‑code setup), but a few tools consistently rank at the top: **Retell AI**, **Bland AI**, **Agentforce (Salesforce)**, **Rasa Voice**, **PolyAI**, **Cognigy**, **Synthflow**, and **Cresta**.[2][3][4][8][9]

Below is a concise breakdown by use case, so you can pick a best‑fit rather than a single “winner.”

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## 1. Best overall for enterprise / large contact centers

**If you’re a large company with serious call volume, integrations, and compliance needs:**

- **Agentforce (Salesforce) – best for Salesforce‑centric enterprises**

- Positioned as the **premier enterprise platform** and top‑rated (4.5+ G2) for AI voice agents.[4]

- Strongest where you already use Salesforce data and need deep CRM integration and reporting.[4]

- **Rasa Voice – best for sovereign / self‑hosted & multi‑channel**

- Rasa calls **Rasa Voice** the **best overall AI voice agent** for enterprises that need **sovereign deployment**, data control, and continuity between channels (voice, chat, etc.).[9]

- Good fit if you want to host on your own infra or strict data/privacy requirements.[9]

- **Cresta – best for enterprise contact centers with coaching/assist**

- Included in multiple “best for enterprise contact center” round‑ups.[6][8]

- Focuses on **agent assist**, analytics, and performance in large contact-center environments, plus generative voice bots.[8]

- **Kore.ai, Google CCAI, Sierra, Decagon**

- Regularly listed among **top enterprise voice agents** for large contact centers.[4][6][8]

- Strong on IVR replacement, NLU, and multi‑channel orchestration.

If you’re already on Salesforce → **Agentforce**.

If you want data control / open ecosystem → **Rasa Voice**.

If you want a commercial contact‑center vendor → **Cresta**, **Kore.ai**, or **PolyAI**.

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## 2. Best for builders / developers

**If you’re a technical team or startup that wants to build custom agents with APIs and low latency:**

- **Retell AI – best technical builder platform**

- A voice‑first platform for **real‑time AI agents** with low latency and strong conversational control.[3]

- Their own benchmark/blog positions Retell as the **“safest and most complete option”** for most support teams after testing 15+ agents.[3]

- In an independent YouTube comparison of multiple platforms, Retell is highlighted as the **“best platform for builders”** thanks to flexibility and developer features.[2]

- **Bland AI – best for enterprise‑grade builder experience and reliability**

- In the same large comparison, **Bland AI** is chosen as the **“best for enterprise”** voice AI platform, suited for high‑volume, production use.[2]

- Also shows extremely **low latency (~500 ms)** in independent tests, making conversations feel natural.[1]

- **Frameworks & infra: LiveKit, Pipkit/Pipcat, others**

- For teams that want to own more of the stack, frameworks like **LiveKit** (real‑time audio infra) or **Pipcat/Pipkit** are recommended as “framework tier” winners for builders who are comfortable wiring LLMs, STT, and TTS themselves.[2]

If you want a hosted platform with APIs → **Retell AI** or **Bland AI**.

If you want to build deep, custom infra → **LiveKit** or similar frameworks.[2]

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## 3. Best no‑code / low‑code voice agents

**If you want to build voice flows visually with minimal code:**

- **Synthflow**

- Marketed as a **no‑code voice agent platform** for building and deploying custom, low‑latency phone agents.[3][7]

- Independent testing lists it among the **top 5 AI voice agents for customer support**, highlighting ease of use.[3]

- **Voiceflow**

- Often used for conversational design; tests show **surprisingly fast latency (~584 ms)** and a good visual builder.[1]

- Good for prototyping or teams with conversation designers rather than pure engineers.[1]

These are ideal if you need to get something live fast without a full engineering team.

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## 4. Best for customer support / contact centers specifically

For **customer support teams** (inbound + outbound support calls):

- **Retell AI**

- After testing 15+ tools for support, one in‑depth review concludes: **“For most customer support teams, Retell AI is the safest and most complete option based on real-world testing.”**[3]

- **PolyAI**

- Frequently listed as a top support‑focused voice agent, known for **conversational quality** and production deployments in support.[3][6]

- **Cognigy**

- Often cited for enterprise customer service automation with strong **omni‑channel** abilities.[3][8]

- **Cresta, Sierra, Decagon, Ada, Regal, Forethought**

- Named in multiple “best AI voice agents for customer support” lists, especially in contact-center and BPO environments.[6][8]

If your main goal is to deflect tickets and automate support calls → prioritize **Retell AI**, **PolyAI**, **Cognigy**, **Cresta**.

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## 5. Latency and “voice quality” leaders

If you care about calls feeling **instant and human‑like**:

- A hands‑on test of top voice AI tools found:

- **Bland AI**: ~**500 ms** average latency (among the fastest tested).[1]

- **Vapi (Vappy)**: ~539 ms.[1]

- **Voiceflow**: ~584 ms.[1]

- **Retell AI**: ~714 ms on similar setup.[1]

- Others like Synthflow were closer to ~1 second.[1]

Sub‑600 ms is where conversations feel close to real-time; all of the above are in or near that range.[1]

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## 6. How to choose “the best” for you

Ask yourself:

1. **Who will use this?**

- Enterprise contact center → **Agentforce**, **Rasa Voice**, **Cresta**, **Kore.ai**, **PolyAI**.[4][8][9]

- Startup / dev team → **Retell AI**, **Bland AI**, frameworks like **LiveKit**.[2][3]

2. **How will you build it?**

- Prefer APIs & code → **Retell AI**, **Bland AI**, **Rasa Voice**.[2][3][9]

- Prefer no‑code UI → **Synthflow**, **Voiceflow**.[1][3][7]

3. **What matters most?**

- Latency & natural feel → **Bland AI**, **Vapi**, **Voiceflow**, **Retell AI**.[1]

- Data control / on‑prem → **Rasa Voice**.[9]

- Deep Salesforce integration → **Agentforce**.[4]

If you tell me your main use case (e.g., “outbound sales calls for a startup,” “Tier‑1 support for a 200‑seat contact center,” or “personal AI assistant”), I can narrow this to 2–3 concrete recommendations and suggest what to try first.