How we test the receptionist that answers your phone.

What the evaluations check

Each scenario is a realistic caller with a business behind it: a salon, a dental practice, a garage, a takeaway, a hotel, a vet. The receptionist answers using the real AI model, and the answer is checked automatically. Among the things they check:

• Bookings. It checks real availability before offering a time, asks again rather than calling the week full, refuses a slot that is too soon, and does not say something is booked unless the booking was actually made.
• Prices. It does not quote a price that is not on your list, prices food from your menu only, and answers a known question from the answer you approved.
• Emergencies and health. A medical emergency goes to a person with no advice given; a non-urgent symptom gets no advice either; a caller who smells gas is given 0800 111 999 and passed on, while a caller booking a gas safety certificate is simply booked.
• Privacy. It does not read out another customer’s booking, and it does not read internal booking ids out as if they were reference numbers.
• Allergies. It never guarantees that a dish is free of an allergen.
• Manipulation. Callers who try to talk it out of its instructions, or into giving away information, are refused, and an abusive caller is passed to your team.
• Honesty about itself. Asked whether it is an AI, it says so. After a transfer to a person fails, it does not promise one.
• The rest of the job. Waiting lists and class places, hotel stays, table bookings, takeaway orders, call departments, and replies in the caller’s own language.

The answers are marked by fixed checks written in code, not by another AI. A failed check fails the run.

What has to pass before a release

• Thousands of automated tests against a real database: 2,738 unit and integration tests in the measured run of 3 October 2026, plus browser tests in the Chrome, Firefox and Safari engines and on a mobile Safari screen.
• Business isolation. A test replays every signed-in page and action as a different business and fails if anything leaks, changes or even reveals that a record exists.
• Tests of the tests. About thirty important safety checks, such as booking locks, class capacity, opt-outs and spending limits, are deliberately broken one at a time to prove the tests notice.
• Security and secrets scans. A code security scan blocks the release on any high or critical finding, and every commit is scanned for leaked keys.
• Live evaluations for any change to what the AI reads, as above.
• Only the newest version ships, and after it does, each server has to report healthy.

Rules the code enforces, not just the AI

• Food orders are priced from your menu by our server, and anything not on it is refused.
• If your calendar cannot be read, no times are offered and nothing is booked, rather than risk a clash.
• On WhatsApp and text, a reply that says something is booked is checked against what was actually booked before it is sent.
• A safety ceiling on minutes, so a busy month cannot run your bill away.
• The AI disclosure at the start of a call is on by default.

Watching it live

Every six hours a canary opens a real session with the voice model, with the booking tools attached, and raises an alarm if it cannot. Calls that are handed to a person mid-call because the AI could not carry on are counted and alerted on.

What we have not done yet

• No third-party penetration test, and no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification.
• The evaluations are text in, text out. They test what the receptionist decides and says, not the sound of its voice; live audio calls are run by hand.
• We do not yet place an automatic test call through the phone network every day. It is built and not switched on.
• Testing makes mistakes rarer, not impossible. That is why the receptionist hands complaints, emergencies and anything it is unsure of to a person.

Test it yourself

Ring our own receptionist on 07888 870150 and try to trip it up. In your account, the Test Centre lets you talk to your own receptionist in the browser before it takes a real call. Our privacy policy and data processing agreement cover how call data is handled.