Voice and Speech
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| AMD | Answering Machine Detection — technology that identifies whether a call is answered by a person or a voicemail system. Used in outbound campaigns to skip voicemails. |
| Backchannel | Short audio cues like “mm-hmm” or “uh-huh” that signal the agent is listening without interrupting the caller. |
| Barge-in / Interruption | When a caller speaks while the agent is still talking. The agent detects this and stops its response to listen. Controlled via turn detection settings. |
| DTMF | Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency — the tones generated when you press buttons on a phone keypad. Used for menu navigation and input collection. |
| Endpointing | The process of detecting when a speaker has finished their turn. The agent uses silence duration, speech patterns, and AI to decide when to respond. |
| Filler phrases | Short phrases like “Let me check that…” spoken by the agent while processing a response. Reduces perceived latency. See Smart Filler. |
| IVR | Interactive Voice Response — traditional automated phone menu systems (e.g., “Press 1 for sales”). itellicoAI agents replace rigid IVR menus with natural conversation. |
| Latency | The delay between when a caller finishes speaking and when the agent starts responding. Made up of transcription time + AI processing + voice synthesis + network. |
| STT | Speech-to-Text — converts spoken audio into written text. Also called transcription. This is how your agent understands what callers say. |
| Transcriber | The speech-to-text engine that converts caller audio into text. itellicoAI supports multiple providers like Deepgram and Azure Speech. |
| TTS | Text-to-Speech — converts written text into spoken audio. This is how your agent speaks to callers. Also called voice synthesis. |
| Turn detection | How the agent decides when the caller has finished speaking and it’s the agent’s turn to respond. Combines VAD (silence detection) with AI-based understanding of conversation flow. |
| VAD | Voice Activity Detection — technology that detects when someone is speaking versus when there is silence. The foundation of turn detection — controls how long the agent waits after silence before responding. |
| Voice cloning | Creating a custom synthetic voice from an audio sample so your agent sounds like a specific person or brand voice. |
| Voice provider | The service that generates the agent’s spoken voice (e.g., ElevenLabs, Cartesia). Different providers offer different voices, languages, and latency characteristics. |
AI and Knowledge
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| AI model | The artificial intelligence that powers your agent’s understanding and responses. You can choose different models that balance speed, accuracy, and cost. |
| LLM | Large Language Model — an AI model trained on large amounts of text that can understand and generate human language. Powers your agent’s reasoning and responses. |
| Context mode | A knowledge access method where selected source content is injected directly into runtime context. Best for small, high-priority content. |
| Jinja | A template system used in itellicoAI to insert dynamic information (like caller names, dates, or account details) into your agent’s messages. Uses {{ }} and {% %} syntax. See Template Syntax. |
| OCR | Optical Character Recognition — technology that reads text from scanned images and PDFs, making the content available to your agent. |
| RAG | Retrieval-Augmented Generation — a smart search system that finds only the most relevant information from your knowledge base for each conversation. Best for large content collections. |
| Temperature | A setting that controls how creative or consistent your agent’s responses are. Lower values produce more predictable answers; higher values produce more varied ones. |
| Token | A unit of text that AI models use to process language. Roughly 1 token equals 0.75 words, so 10,000 tokens is approximately 7,500 words. |
Telephony and Networking
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| BYOC | Bring Your Own Carrier — an older technical label for what the product now calls Connect Your Own. It means importing your existing phone numbers through your SIP carrier instead of buying new ones in itellicoAI. |
| Compliance Profile | A reusable verification profile used when buying phone numbers in regulated countries. Some carrier systems still call the underlying package a regulatory bundle. |
| E.164 | The international phone number format that includes a country code (e.g., +15551234567). Required for phone number configuration. |
| PBX | Private Branch Exchange — a business phone system that routes calls internally to different extensions and departments. |
| PSTN | Public Switched Telephone Network — the traditional phone network that carries voice calls over dedicated circuits. |
| SIP | Session Initiation Protocol — a method for routing phone calls over the internet. SIP trunks connect your existing phone carrier to itellicoAI. |
| WebRTC | Web Real-Time Communication — technology that enables voice and video calls directly in a web browser without plugins. Powers itellicoAI Web Widgets. |
Data and Development
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| API | Application Programming Interface — a way for software systems to communicate with each other. itellicoAI provides APIs for custom integrations and automation. |
| HTTP / HTTPS | Hypertext Transfer Protocol (Secure) — the standard method for sending data over the web. HTTPS adds encryption for security. |
| JSON | JavaScript Object Notation — a structured data format commonly used for exchanging information between systems. |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol — a standard way to connect your agents to external tools and data sources, extending their capabilities beyond built-in tools. |
| SDK | Software Development Kit — pre-built code libraries that make it easier for developers to integrate with the itellicoAI platform. |
| URI | Uniform Resource Identifier — an address used to identify a resource, such as a SIP destination for call transfers. |
Compliance and Legal
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| BAA | Business Associate Agreement — a contract required for HIPAA-compliant healthcare applications that handle protected health information. |
| CCPA | California Consumer Privacy Act — a California law that gives residents rights over their personal data, including the right to know, delete, and opt out of data sales. |
| DPA | Data Processing Agreement — a contract between a data controller and a data processor that outlines how personal data is handled, required under GDPR. |
| DSAR | Data Subject Access Request — a request under GDPR for an organization to provide or delete a person’s personal data. |
| GDPR / DSGVO | General Data Protection Regulation (Datenschutz-Grundverordnung in German) — the European Union’s data privacy law governing how personal data is collected, stored, and processed. Applies across the EU and EEA; Switzerland has equivalent rules under the revDSG. |
| UWG | Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb — Germany’s Unfair Competition Act. Regulates telemarketing and cold calling. Prohibits unsolicited B2C calls without prior consent. |
| TKG | Telekommunikationsgesetz — Austria’s Telecommunications Act (TKG 2021). Governs cold calling rules and requires explicit opt-in for B2C calls. |
| DSG / revDSG | Datenschutzgesetz — Switzerland’s Federal Data Protection Act, revised in September 2023. Requires transparency about automated decision-making and data processing. |
| AVV | Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag — the German term for a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) under GDPR/DSGVO. Required when a third party processes personal data on your behalf. |
| EU AI Act | The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation 2024/1689). Requires that users interacting with an AI system are informed they are communicating with AI, not a human. Voice AI agents fall under transparency obligations — callers must be told they are speaking with an AI. |
| HIPAA | Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — a US law that sets standards for protecting sensitive patient health information. |
| SLA | Service Level Agreement — a contract defining guaranteed uptime, support response times, and other service commitments. |
| TCPA | Telephone Consumer Protection Act — a US law regulating telemarketing calls, auto-dialed calls, and pre-recorded messages. |
Platform Concepts
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Agent Editor | The configuration surface for AI agents. Create an agent from AI Agents → Create Agent, then configure every aspect in the Agent Editor. |
| AI Agent | An AI-powered voice assistant configured on the itellicoAI platform. Each agent has its own identity, prompt, knowledge, voice, and tools. Documentation may sometimes shorten this to just “agent.” |
| Campaign | An outbound calling initiative where your agent automatically calls a list of contacts for purposes like follow-ups, surveys, or sales outreach. |
| Connect Your Own | The current product label for importing existing phone numbers into itellicoAI through your SIP carrier. This is the user-facing term for BYOC setup. |
| Dynamic Context | Real-time data sent to your agent at the start of each conversation (e.g., caller account details), enabling personalized responses. Usually requires technical setup by someone on your team. |
| Knowledge Base | A collection of documents, text, and web content that your agent references to answer questions accurately. |
| Account | A top-level account in itellicoAI with independent billing, agents, knowledge bases, phone numbers, and team members. Also called a main or parent account. |
| Agency Access | A model where a client owns and pays for its own itellicoAI account, while an agency or service provider gets elevated access to help manage setup, maintenance, or operations. |
| Subaccount | A nested account under a parent account with its own agents, numbers, and team. In the parent/subaccount model, itellicoAI bills the parent account centrally, and the parent may handle downstream customer billing separately. |
| Schedules | Shared time-based availability configurations used for campaign windows, routing logic, agent tool availability, and business-hours rules. |
| Secrets | Reusable credentials and references stored centrally for integrations, automations, and technical workflows. |
| Profile | Your personal user identity in itellicoAI. A single profile can belong to multiple accounts and switch between them using the account switcher. |
| Tool | A capability your agent can use during a conversation, such as transferring a call, booking an appointment, or looking up information in an external system. |
| Trust Center | The compliance and transparency surface in itellicoAI. At the account level, it covers data retention, GDPR-style data requests, and public trust settings. Web Widgets can also expose a public Trust Center page for visitors. |
| Web Widget | An embeddable component that adds AI-powered voice and chat to your website. Configured through the visual Web Widgets editor. Documentation may sometimes shorten this to just “widget.” |
Related Pages
Introduction
Explore the platform overview
Quickstart
Build your first agent
Agent Editor
Configure your agent in the agent editor