Oct 8, 2026

Which AI Agent Calls New Leads Automatically? (2026)

Carly calls your new leads for you. When someone fills out your web form, Carly’s voice agent phones them within about a minute from your team’s business line. It greets them by name, asks your qualifying questions, and books the meeting on your team’s calendar or transfers the call live to a rep. If the lead doesn’t pick up, Carly texts and emails them your booking link. You can set it up from ChatGPT or Claude by adding Carly Teams.

Why the first minute decides the lead

Trying within an hour made qualifying a lead nearly 7 times as likely as trying an hour later, and more than 60 times as likely as waiting a day or more. That’s from a study of 1.25 million leads at 42 US companies, written up in Harvard Business Review in 2011.
Most companies are slow anyway. In the same article’s audit of 2,241 US companies, 37% answered a test lead within an hour, 23% never answered, and those that replied within 30 days averaged 42 hours.
The steepest drop is in the first minutes. Calling within 5 minutes instead of 30 made contact 100 times more likely in the 2007 Lead Response Management study of six companies’ call logs.

A rep in a meeting can’t call inside a minute. Software can. Sources for every number, and the myths, are in our speed to lead statistics.

How Carly calls a new lead

This is the setup from Carly’s speed to lead walkthrough.

The lead comes in. Your web form or CRM sends each new lead to a Carly workflow, or Carly’s own form does it for you. Carly connects to thousands of apps, including HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, GoHighLevel, Zoho and Close. A qualifying field, like company size, decides who gets a call.
The voice agent calls within about a minute from your team’s business line. It has the form answers, so it greets the lead by name and knows why they reached out.
It qualifies them. It asks what prompted them to get in touch, then your questions, like “Do you own the business, and is revenue over $1M?” It detects whether the lead speaks English or Spanish and talks in that language.
It books or transfers. A qualified lead gets a meeting on a rep’s calendar while still on the line, or a live transfer to a person. You choose where leads go: every rep, specific reps or regions, or a polite end to the call.
If they don’t pick up, Carly emails them your booking link and texts them at the same time. Text replies land in your team’s shared inbox, and Carly stops answering once a teammate takes over. A lead who arrives outside your calling hours gets the call when your hours start.
Everything is logged. The qualification note and calendar event are on record, and the lead’s status updates in your CRM with a summary and the full call transcript.

Before you go live, have the agent call you as a test lead, then check how it qualified and routed you.

Set it up from ChatGPT or Claude

Carly Teams puts ChatGPT or Claude on your team’s business line. From the chat you build and tune the lead-calling agent in plain words: its opening line for new leads, its questions, which calendars it books on and who it transfers to. Before the assistant places a call or sends a text, it confirms the team, the person and the task with you.

The line is your team’s business line in Carly. If you already have a Twilio account, it connects on the Phone page. If not, the Carly team sets up a number with you on a short call and can connect your form to the agent at the same time.

Paste this prompt into ChatGPT or Claude. It gives that app’s clicks one at a time.

Carly business setup prompt

Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or any AI agent. It connects your team's calls, texts, voicemail and voice agents, one step at a time.

Help me connect Carly Teams so I can work with my organization's business texts, phone calls, voicemail and voice/text agents from this chat.

I'll add Carly Teams to you myself. It isn't in any plugin or connector directory yet, so it gets added as a custom connection by URL: https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. Tell me exactly what to click for the app you are, one step at a time, and wait for me to confirm before moving on. If you can run the setup yourself (Claude Code, Codex, Muse, Grok Bot), go ahead.

1. Tell me how to add Carly Teams. Give me only the steps for the app you are:
- ChatGPT: I open https://chatgpt.com/plugins, click Add, and choose Create MCP App (not Create plugin or Upload plugin archive). If Create MCP App isn't on the menu, I turn on Developer mode first in Settings > Security and login. I name it "Carly Teams" with the description "Work with my team's business texts, calls, voicemail and voice/text agents," paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp as the server URL, choose OAuth, create it, and sign in. Then in the message box I open the + menu, choose Developer mode, and pick Carly Teams. Don't have me build, package or upload a plugin.
- Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, or Cowork): I go to Customize > Connectors > Add custom connector, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Claude Code: run claude mcp add --transport http --scope user carly-teams https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp then I run /mcp, pick carly-teams, and authenticate.
- Codex: run codex mcp add carly-teams --url https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp then codex mcp login carly-teams
- Cursor: I add {"mcpServers": {"carly-teams": {"url": "https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp"}}} to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, then sign in to carly-teams from Customize.
- Muse: I create a Carly API key at carlyassistant.com/integrations (Advanced > API Keys > Create a new key, with organization read and write scopes for the actions I need). You build a custom connector to https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp using the key as a bearer token and ask me for it in your secure credential prompt.
- Grok: I go to grok.com/connectors, choose New Connector, then Custom, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Grok Bot: add a custom remote MCP server named carly-teams with https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, then I approve it and sign in.
- Perplexity: I go to Settings > Connectors > Custom connector > Remote, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Anything else: I add a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) named carly-teams with https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. It signs in with OAuth.
I sign in with the Carly account that belongs to my organization. If a step doesn't match what I see, ask me what's on my screen before giving the next one.

2. When I say it's added, check that you can see the Carly Teams tools, including list_phone_lines. If you can't yet, tell me how to turn Carly Teams on for this chat, or tell me to open a new chat and paste this prompt again.

3. Check it worked: call list_phone_lines to show the teams and phone lines I can access. Don't tell me it's connected until that call succeeds. If I have several teams, ask which to use. If the team needs a phone line, help me connect its existing Twilio account on the Phone page in Carly.

4. Ask what I want to do first, for example: "Review our missed calls and voicemail and help me reply to customers." I can also read and answer business texts, have the team's agent make a call, or edit the voice and text agents. Before sending texts or making calls, confirm the team, recipient and message or task with me. Respect my team permissions.

For my email, calendars, files, booking pages and workflows, add the regular Carly plugin as a separate connection. It's listed in ChatGPT's plugin directory (https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6a67a26316b88191860222f918d4ec54) and Claude's connector directory (https://claude.ai/directory/carly), and anywhere else it connects at https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/.

Then try:

“Set up our voice agent to call new demo-form leads. Ask how big their team is, and book anyone over 10 people on Josh’s calendar.”
“Have the agent call Emily, who just filled out our quote form. Watch the call, and if she asks about pricing, tell the agent to offer her a call with Michael tomorrow.”
“Change the qualifying rule to business owners doing over $1M a year, and send those leads to Claire.”

The form-to-call trigger is a Carly workflow, and workflows live on your regular Carly connection with your email and calendars: Get the Carly plugin in ChatGPT, or Get the Carly connector in Claude. Full walkthroughs: can ChatGPT make phone calls and can Claude make phone calls.

The rules for AI calls to new leads (US)

A plain summary, not legal advice. If you call at volume, have a TCPA lawyer review your form and script.

AI voices count as “artificial” voices. The FCC’s February 2024 declaratory ruling put AI-generated voices under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Calling a cell phone with one needs the person’s prior express consent, and a sales call needs prior express written consent.
So add a consent checkbox to your form. Name your business, say you may call and text using automated technology or an AI voice, and say agreeing isn’t required to buy. An electronic signature counts under the FCC’s written-consent rule. Keep a record of each one.
The one-to-one consent rule is gone. The Eleventh Circuit vacated it on January 24, 2025, days before it took effect, and the FCC removed it from its rules in August 2025. Consent still has to cover your business.
Call between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the lead’s time zone. That’s the federal window for telemarketing calls under the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule and the TCPA rules. Florida allows 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and at most three sales calls to a person in 24 hours on the same subject.
Say who’s calling, and that it’s an AI. FCC rules require an artificial-voice call to name the business at the start and give a callback number. Since January 2025, California has required automated calls with a prerecorded message to say when the voice is AI-generated (Public Utilities Code 2874). The FCC proposed a nationwide AI-call disclosure in 2024, with no final rule yet. Open every call with your business name and that it’s an AI assistant.

Do Not Call rules and penalties are in AI outbound calling.

Other AI agents that call new leads

Carly is our pick when you want the call, the booking, the follow-up and the CRM update in one place. The other routes:

ChatGPT or Claude alone. Neither has a phone line, so neither can call a lead without a phone connection like Carly Teams.
AI voice agents in your phone system. JustCall’s AI Voice Agent, a paid add-on, can call a lead, and a chat can send one out but not steer it (Claude + JustCall). Aircall’s AI Voice Agents place outbound calls too, and its API can start one when a lead fills out a form (ChatGPT + Aircall). You build the agent, script and trigger inside that phone system.
Developer voice platforms. Vapi, Bland and Retell give you voice AI agents through an API. You write the prompt, connect the CRM and calendar, and build retries, calling-hour checks and consent handling yourself.
AI SDR tools. Platforms like 11x pair an AI SDR for outbound outreach with an AI phone agent for inbound leads. They’re built around a sales team’s prospecting and sold through a demo.

Where Carly fits best

A small or mid-size team that wants every form lead called, qualified and booked fast, without hiring an SDR or building a voice stack. The same line answers incoming calls and handles missed call text back. Carly also sends email sequences from your team’s own Gmail or Outlook that stop when the lead replies (how that works), routes leads to the right rep in its built-in CRM, and connects to HubSpot and Salesforce.

Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. The phone line is set up on a short call with the Carly team.

FAQ

How fast should you call a new lead?

Within five minutes, and within an hour at most. In a study of 1.25 million leads written up in Harvard Business Review, trying within an hour made qualifying a lead nearly seven times as likely as trying an hour later. Carly calls within about a minute of the form.

Can ChatGPT call my new leads?

Not on its own, since it has no phone line. Add Carly Teams and ChatGPT can set up a voice agent that calls each new lead from your team’s business line. Claude works the same way.

Is it legal to have AI call leads?

In the US, yes, with consent. The FCC treats AI voices as artificial voices under the TCPA, so you need prior express consent, and prior express written consent for sales calls. A consent checkbox on your form is the usual way to get it. Respect calling hours and say it’s an AI. This isn’t legal advice.

What happens if the lead doesn’t answer?

Carly emails them your booking link and texts them at the same time. A text reply lands in your team’s shared inbox, where a teammate can take over.

Ready to automate your busywork?

Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.

See what people say

"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.

Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.

On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."

Gus Ibrahim, Founder & Director, IHR