Can your iPhone or Android answer calls for you with AI?

Partly. An iPhone, a Pixel or a new Samsung can answer a call from a number it doesn’t know and ask who’s calling and why. You see the answer on screen, then decide whether to talk. They can also show a voicemail as text while the caller is still leaving it.

They won’t run the call for you. On the Apple, Google and Samsung pages we read, none of these features answers in your business name, books a job or texts the caller back on its own. You still choose whether to pick up, and you still ring back.

For a phone that rings a few times a day, that’s often plenty. For new customers ringing while you’re under a house, it’s a better voicemail.

Every feature in that table ends with you looking at the screen. Screening tells you who’s ringing and why. Live Voicemail and Take a Message tell you what they said. Then you pick up, or ring back later.

Google’s Take a Message plays a greeting you can record yourself, so it can say your business name. It still just takes a message. Samsung’s Text call comes closest to answering for you, and you type every reply.

A new customer’s number isn’t in your contacts yet, so new customers are exactly the calls that get screened. Apple also has a Silence setting that sends every unsaved number straight to voicemail. That’s handy for spam, and less handy for a stranger with water coming through the ceiling.

Ours is for when the calls you can’t get to are new jobs, and you want them answered and booked while you work.

It’s A$299 a month for a sole trader, with 100 minutes and 150 texts included, plus A$299 once for setup. No GST is added, and it’s month to month. You keep your number and forward calls to your assistant’s own Australian mobile number.

We set it up for you and keep an eye on what it says. To hear it first, ring the demo on 0485 000 166. It answers as Mario’s Plumbing, a plumber we made up.