Dialpad AI explained in 2026: Features, cost, & limits

Dialpad AI is the built-in artificial intelligence layer across Dialpad’s business communications platform. It’s powered by DialpadGPT, Dialpad’s proprietary large language model. With it, businesses can get live coaching, perform sentiment analysis, and set up AI agents to handle voice calls.

But is Dialpad AI right for your team? To save you time, this post collects what you should know about how it works, the features it offers, and what it costs. You can quickly compare its benefits and drawbacks, then decide if it’s a fit for your team.

What is Dialpad AI?

Dialpad AI refers to the artificial intelligence features in Dialpad’s business phone solutions. It’s based on Dialpad’s proprietary large language model, DialpadGPT. This is layered into Dialpad’s Voice Intelligence engine, which came from its acquisition of TalkIQ in 2018.

Dialpad AI’s features can help you:

• Listen to caller feedback and trends
• Generate transcripts from live calls and call recordings
• Summarize voice calls and video meetings
• Provide action items after customer conversations
• Coach reps with real-time and automated feedback
• Respond 24/7 with AI agents

Keep in mind that the AI features you get depend heavily on the Dialpad product and plan you buy.

Learn more about the options available in our full Dialpad review.

Dialpad AI features, one by one 

Dialpad offers three products: Connect, Sell, and Support. Connect was designed for most small and growing businesses. Sell and Support were designed for large-scale sales and customer support teams.

Here are the AI features you get on the Dialpad Connect plan: 

1. Live call and meeting transcription. Dialpad transcribes calls and video meetings in real time so you can read conversations as they happen. That means no manual note-taking, and you can quickly get context if you need to reference something said several minutes earlier.
2. AI recaps and call summaries. Read an automatically generated summary with action items and next steps after every call. This lets your team catch up quickly without needing to listen back to a full recording.
3. AI-assisted writing and voicemail transcription. Dialpad suggests message copy as you type in chat and converts voicemails to text automatically. Both save time on routine tasks without requiring third-party integrations.

Here are the AI features you get with Dialpad Sell and Dialpad Support: 

1. AI live coach. Dialpad pulls information from connected knowledge bases and automatically displays it to reps during calls. That way, reps can accurately respond to FAQs without putting callers on hold to search for answers.
2. Real-time assist, or RTA Cards. When a common phrase comes up on a call — like a pricing objection— your rep gets a pop-up card with suggested talking points and best practices. This lets you offer live guidance on calls without needing managers to listen in.
3. Sentiment analysis. Dialpad scores the emotional feeling of a conversation in real time by analyzing word choice, pacing, and tone. Then the AI flags calls as positive, negative, or neutral. Managers can use this to spot calls going sideways and step in to offer support.
4. AI CSAT. Rather than waiting for customers to fill out a survey, Dialpad AI predicts satisfaction scores based on call sentiment. This can help measure customer experience without relying on the small percentage of customers who respond to your CSAT surveys.
5. AI scorecards. Dialpad automatically evaluates your reps’ calls against the quality criteria you specify. This can help speed up the call QA process, since you’ll get a quality score without manually reviewing every recording.
6. AI playbooks. Automatically spot where reps deviate from scripts during live calls. Dialpad AI can flag missed steps or skipped stages, then let managers know where they have room to improve.
7. AI custom moments. When you define specific keywords or phrases you want Dialpad’s AI to flag — like “cancel” or “speak with your manager” — it can search for them in your calls. This can help you spot patterns across high call volumes.

Want a dedicated tool to help with inbound phone answering? You can also get Dialpad AI agents as a separate add-on. These customizable tools can help answer inbound calls or chats. They autonomously gather information, like customer details or problem type. Then they work to resolve simple tasks. For complicated issues or questions, you can have your agent route the call to a rep on your team.

Just keep in mind you can’t try most of this before you buy. Dialpad doesn’t include many of its AI features in its free trial, so you can’t test its features without first committing to a plan.

See for yourself:

“The trial does not give you access to key features like the AI greeting attendant, which is a major reason to evaluate the platform. Instead, you’re limited to basic options that sound robotic and don’t reflect the actual product capabilities.” — Trustpilot

How accurate is Dialpad’s AI transcription?

Dialpad’s AI transcripts performed 10% to 15% better than competitors like OpenAI’s Whisper. This lets reps skip taking notes on calls and lets managers review conversations accurately even after the call ends.

Apart from English, Dialpad’s AI transcription supports Spanish, French, and Japanese. It can transcribe nine other languages, but they’re in development and only available to “Early Adopters.”

Dialpad states its AI transcription’s “accuracy will differ based on regional accents.” You also can’t control many quality factors, like the caller’s microphone, environment, and connection quality.

One comparison study found that Dialpad’s AI transcription feature is 2x more inaccurate than some of its alternatives. 

Here’s what a few reviewers have to say:

“The AI transcription feature is very useful, but it can sometimes struggle with industry-specific terminology, accents, or poor audio quality, requiring minor manual corrections.” — G2

“The AI transcription more or less sucks. I understand it is aiming for summaries. In my actual workflow, I am rarely reading them for context and do not find them helpful.” — Trustpilot

“AI transcription can be very humorous and is not very accurate.” — Trustpilot

What Dialpad AI costs: What’s included vs extra

Dialpad includes all AI basics on its standard Connect plans. Starting at $15 per user per month, you’ll get:

• Real-time transcriptions
• AI recaps
• Call summaries

Only Dialpad’s Sell and Support plans give you access to advanced AI features. For $150 per user per month, you’ll get: 

• AI scorecards
• AI CSAT
• AI live coach 

Would you rather pay for each AI feature separately? The good news is you can get them as an add-on with cheaper plans. But keep in mind the add-ons don’t have public pricing. Plans start at $39 per user per month for Sell and $80 per user per month for Support. 

Want to learn more about every tier, add-on, and fee in Dialpad? See our Dialpad pricing guide.

How Dialpad AI compares to alternatives 

Many Dialpad alternatives on the market offer similar AI features at a lower price.

Here’s how a few stack up:

• Zoom Phone. Zoom bundles its AI into paid Zoom plans starting at $10.50 per user per month rather than charging a separate AI fee. AI note-taking, meeting summaries, and in-meeting Q&A are included, with usage capped on lower tiers and unlimited on Pro Plus and Business. One strength is reach: Zoom’s AI note-taker works across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and in-person meetings, not just Zoom calls. Dialpad’s AI spans calls, texts, and video and adds live coaching that Zoom doesn’t offer.
• RingCentral. RingCentral is a legacy VoIP phone platform that bundles basic AI on every plan. You get video and call transcription, summaries, AI-assisted SMS, and conversation analytics as an add-on. RingCentral’s AI receptionist is an add-on that answers calls and sends SMS follow-ups. Learn more about how Dialpad and RingCentral compare.
• Quo, formerly OpenPhone. Quo comes with Sona, a built-in AI voice agent, which you can try for free for the first 10 calls on any plan. Quo offers many of the AI features that Dialpad offers, like transcripts, summaries, and call tags. You can also use Sona to perform actions, like greeting callers, qualifying leads, and sending text messages. Dialpad’s AI doesn’t offer this on the Connect plan without an add-on or separate subscription.

See what one customer had to say:

“We’ve been using Sona, and it’s been a huge help. It answers calls, provides clear information the first time, and even redirects people when they call the wrong line, all without pulling a team member away from their work.” — Brandon Ingram, Sales & Operations Manager, Environment Control

Is Dialpad AI good for a small business?

For most small and growing teams, Dialpad’s AI tools aren’t the best fit, at least not without paying for more than you need. Every plan includes basic tools like transcriptions and summaries. But its best AI features, like AI coaching, scorecards, and sentiment, require multiple upgrades to plans specifically designed for contact centers. This is also reflected in the price, which costs up to $150 per user per month to unlock these features.

See for yourself:

“The pricing is quite high compared to our previous provider, but with AI transcription and all those creature comforts, I can find the pricing justifiable.” — Trustpilot

Verdict: Is Dialpad AI worth it for your business?

Dialpad’s AI could make sense for large sales teams and support reps. Its live coaching tools can help you get new reps up to speed, and AI sentiment analysis gathers call data to create better customer experiences.

But if you’re not a call center or a business with a large budget, Dialpad’s AI is likely overkill for your team. 

This is why many small and growing businesses start with Quo. You get built-in AI features from day one without the contact center price tag. The Business plan starts at $23 per user per month and comes with call transcripts, summaries, and MCP connections to ChatGPT and Claude. When you’re ready, upgrade to the Scale plan to get call tags. You can also purchase more bandwidth via Sona as you grow.

Try Quo for free for seven days and see how our AI features can work for your team.

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