You keep your existing business number. Your AI Employee gets its own number, and your phone system forwards calls to it using one of four routing rules. This guide covers each rule, the ring timing that works, the voicemail conflict that breaks most setups, and provider-specific instructions.
AI Employee answers every call — every inbound call routes straight to your AI Employee, which answers as your receptionist.
Your team answers first — if the call is unanswered after the selected number of rings, it routes to your AI Employee.
AI Employee answers after hours — evening, weekend and holiday calls route directly to your AI Employee.
AI Employee provides overflow support — busy or queued calls that your team cannot pick up route to your AI Employee.
Three to four rings — roughly 18 to 20 seconds — is the standard timeout. It gives your team a real chance to answer without making the caller wait long enough to hang up.
Whatever answers first wins. If voicemail answers at 20 seconds and forwarding fires at 25, the AI Employee never gets the call. Always set the voicemail or queue timeout longer than your forwarding timer, or disable voicemail on the user, queue or line that now hands off.
AT&T Business — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/att-business
Verizon Business — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/verizon-business
T-Mobile — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/t-mobile
Comcast Business — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/comcast-business
Spectrum Business — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/spectrum-business
Cox Business — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/cox-business
RingCentral — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/ringcentral
Nextiva — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/nextiva
Zoom Phone — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/zoom-phone
Vonage — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/vonage
8x8 — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/8x8
GoTo Connect — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/goto-connect
Dialpad — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/dialpad
Grasshopper — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/grasshopper
Google Voice — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/google-voice
Ooma Office — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/ooma-office
NITCO — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/nitco
Traditional landline — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/traditional-landline
Mobile phone — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/mobile-phone
Other or on-premise PBX — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/other
I'm not sure — https://www.presspurpose.ai/phone-system-guides/not-sure
Book a walkthrough at https://www.presspurpose.ai/booking and we will map your call flow, your booking calendar and your CRM before anything goes live.
Press Purpose AI — AI Employees that answer the phone, book the appointment and update your CRM, 24/7.
No. You keep your existing published number. Your AI Employee is given its own number, and your phone system forwards calls to it based on the rule you choose — every call, unanswered calls, busy or overflow calls, or after-hours calls.
Three to four rings, roughly 18 to 20 seconds on most systems, is the common setting. It gives your team a genuine chance to answer while keeping the caller from waiting long enough to hang up.
Whatever answers first wins. If voicemail picks up at 20 seconds and your forwarding rule fires at 25, the call never reaches your AI Employee. Set the voicemail timeout longer than the forwarding timer, or disable voicemail on the user, queue or line that now hands off to the AI Employee.
No. Star codes such as *72 work on many traditional lines, but cloud phone systems like RingCentral, Nextiva, Zoom Phone and Comcast Business VoiceEdge configure routing on users, call queues, hunt groups, auto attendants and business-hours rules instead.
Yes. You provide one or more transfer numbers, and the AI Employee can warm-transfer callers who ask for a person or who match an escalation rule you define, such as an emergency request.
Call your main business number from a phone that is not part of the system, let it ring past the timeout you configured, and confirm the AI Employee answers. Repeat with your team's phones busy, and again outside business hours if you set an after-hours rule.
On traditional lines, dial the cancel code — usually *73 for forward-all. On a cloud phone system, set the call-handling destination back to voicemail or remove the external forwarding step. The change takes effect immediately.