Privacy, Consent, and Controls

If you are deciding whether to turn on the AI Receptionist, or your clients have asked what it does with their calls and messages, you are in the right place. This article explains what gets transcribed or recorded, how callers learn they are speaking with an AI, where the data lives, and how to pause or turn either one off.

For setup, see the AI Receptionist and AI Assistant guides.

What the receptionist can and cannot do

You decide what the receptionist is allowed to do on the What it can do tab. A few things are fixed:

• It never deletes anything from your calendar. Cancelling follows the same rules as a client replying to a reminder.
• Confirming and cancelling obey your message settings. If clients cannot confirm or cancel by replying to your reminders today, the receptionist cannot do it for them either.
• It does not make outbound calls. It answers calls, texts, and emails that come in. Your existing voice reminders are unchanged.

When a caller asks for something outside what it can do, it takes a message with their name, a way to reach them, and what they wanted, then notifies you the same way you are notified about client replies today. The conversation lands in your Inbox tagged “Message taken.”

Tip

Check “Needs follow-up” on the Activity tab each morning. A message taken, a transfer, and a voicemail are the only three ways a conversation reaches a person, and that count is all three.

Transcripts and recordings

Every conversation the receptionist handles is transcribed. Calls, texts, and emails appear on the Activity tab with a full transcript, and calls also appear in your Inbox like any other conversation. Transcripts are kept with your account data, the same as your other messages.

By default, the receptionist does not record audio. It transcribes the call as it happens. The only time it records is when you turn on voicemail on the Who gets notified tab:

• Voicemail off — it asks for the caller’s name and what they need and sends you a written message. Nothing is recorded.
• Voicemail on — it tells the caller it is recording a message for the office, the caller hears a beep, and you receive the recording.

If your account records calls, the greeting tells callers so (see the next section). Recording consent rules vary by state, and some states require every party on the call to agree. If you turn on voicemail or call recording, confirm the rules for your state and your clients’ states. Apptoto cannot give legal advice.

How callers learn they are speaking with an AI

Every call opens with a fixed line that uses the business name from your What it knows tab:

“Thanks for calling [Your Business]. I’m an AI assistant. This call is transcribed and saved so the team can follow up.”

If your account records calls, the line says “This call is recorded and transcribed so the team can follow up” instead.

This opening cannot be edited. It tells every caller that they are talking with an AI and that the conversation is kept, which several states already require. You write the second half of the greeting on the How it sounds tab. If your situation needs different wording, email support@apptoto.com.

On texts and email, there is no fixed opening line. If a client asks whether they are talking with a person, the receptionist tells them it is an AI assistant.

Texts, email, and opt-outs

Texts and email are off until you turn them on on the Texts and email tab.

• Texts — the receptionist answers new conversations and replies to your reminders on your Apptoto number.
• Email — it answers replies from existing clients in threads Apptoto started. It does not answer cold inbound email.

Your own messages are yours. A reply to a message a person on your account wrote always comes to that person, not the receptionist.

Your opt-out lists still apply. A client who has opted out of texts is not texted by the receptionist, and a reply of STOP is handled the same way it is for your reminders. See Text Messaging Consent.

If a client asks to stop in their own words

STOP and the other standard keywords opt a client out of texts automatically. If a client instead writes something like “please stop texting me,” or asks to stop talking with the AI Receptionist, the receptionist takes a message and lets your office know. It does not opt the client out on its own.

Someone on your team then needs to step in: opt the client out if that is what they asked for, and unassign the conversation from the AI Receptionist. Until the conversation is unassigned, the receptionist may answer the client’s next message.

Where your data goes

The AI Receptionist and AI Assistant run inside Apptoto, on the same platform that already holds your calendar, contacts, and messages. Apptoto is SOC 2 compliant. Details are on the Trust Center.

HIPAA. The AI Receptionist is covered under Apptoto’s Business Associate Agreement, including the telephony and text-to-speech services it uses.

Improving the AI. For questions about how Apptoto uses AI Receptionist data to improve its models, contact support@apptoto.com.

The external AI connector is different

If you connect Apptoto to Claude, ChatGPT, or another assistant through the MCP connector, your requests go to that AI vendor under their terms, not under Apptoto’s BAA. Do not use the connector with protected health information.

The AI Assistant

The AI Assistant is for you and your team, not for clients. It is a chat window inside your account. It asks before it changes anything, and every conversation is kept. For full details, see AI Assistant.

Turning it off

1. Open the AI Receptionist tab.
2. Click Turn off in the bar at the top. The receptionist stops answering calls, texts, and email immediately. Your settings are kept, so you can turn it back on later without setting up again.
3. To stop only one channel, uncheck it on the Texts and email tab or switch off Answer phone calls on the Phone calls tab, then click Save.

The AI Assistant has no on/off switch for the account. If you want it hidden for your team, contact support@apptoto.com.

Frequently asked questions

Can a caller tell the receptionist is an AI? Yes. Every call opens by saying so. See How callers learn they are speaking with an AI.

Who can see the transcripts? Anyone with a login on your Apptoto account, the same as your Inbox.

Can it cancel a client’s appointment? Only if your message settings already let clients cancel by replying to a reminder. It never deletes an event from your calendar. See Confirming and cancelling.

Does it answer every call? That is up to you. On the Phone calls tab, choose “Immediately,” “When nobody picks up,” or “Outside office hours.”

Questions this article does not answer? Email support@apptoto.com.