The AI landscape is evolving rapidly, and Talkdesk is committed to an open-standard philosophy that empowers you to use the best-of-breed tools for your business. The Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI) feature—also known as Bring Your Own Bot (BYoB)—is designed for organizations that have already invested in third-party AI voice agents but want to leverage the robust routing, reporting, and management power of Talkdesk as their CCaaS provider.
By utilizing the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard, Talkdesk removes the friction of bespoke integrations. Instead of building complex Webhook or WebSocket connections, you can now connect any SIP-compatible AI provider directly into your Talkdesk Studio flows. This ensures a unified, end-to-end view of the customer journey, from the first automated greeting to the final human resolution.
- How it Works
- Intelligent Handoff and Context Retrieval
- Configuration and Implementation
- Reporting and Billing
- Important Information
- Need help?
How it Works
The core of this solution lies within the Connect to Autopilot Voice component in Talkdesk Studio. By selecting the External Voice Stream transport mode, Talkdesk establishes a bi-directional audio stream between the caller and your AI provider.
Intelligent Handoff and Context Retrieval
A critical advantage of this feature is the ability to maintain conversational continuity. When a caller requests a human agent or the AI reaches the limit of its capabilities, the AI provider initiates a transfer (via a SIP REFER).
During this process, Talkdesk retrieves specific conversational context (e.g., order numbers, intent, or sentiment) passed through custom SIP headers such as User-to-User. This data is then stored in Studio variables, allowing you to:
- Route Smartly: Direct the caller to a specific queue based on the AI’s findings.
- Reduce Friction: Ensure human agents receive the necessary context so the caller doesn't have to repeat themselves.
- Monitor Outcomes: Track whether a query was resolved by the AI or required an escalation.
Configuration and Implementation
The setup process is designed to be low-code, focusing on configuration rather than heavy engineering.
Prerequisites:
- An active Conversation Orchestrator license.
- Knowledge of Talkdesk Studio and external stream configuration.
- A configured AI agent on your chosen third-party provider.
Important Step: Please include the following IP addresses in your AI Voice Platform’s allow-list to ensure the solution works and audio flows both ways.
Implementation Steps
- AI Provider Alignment: Configure your agent on your chosen platform to handle SIP signaling and define the schema for the context you wish to pass back to Talkdesk.
- Studio Integration: In Talkdesk Studio, add the Connect to Autopilot Voice component to your flow. Select External Voice Stream as the connection mode and input the target SIP URI provided by your AI vendor.
- Context Passing to the bot: You can also pass context to the AI bot by setting the “Agents availability” variable. The contents of this variable will be encoded in Hex and sent in the SIP INVITE towards the bot.
The User-to-User header is formatted as shown below before being encoded.
business_hours=<AGENT_AVAILABILITY_VAR>An example of the request URI is below.
INVITE sip:voicebot@voip-provider.example.com?User-to-User=627573696e6573735f686f7572733d7072696f72697479%3Bencoding%3Dhex&X-Talkdesk-Interaction-Id=02ec952acb3147b4bcf37158e029eced- Context Passing from the bot: Map a User-to-User SIP header from your provider to the Talkdesk Studio variable. This variable can dictate the logic for the remainder of the Studio flow, such as determining which team receives an escalated call. The “Connect to Autopilot Voice” component will populate the “escalate_to” variable. An example of the “Refer-To” header in the transfer request from the AI bot is shown below.
When creating the User-to-User header, format it as shown below, preferably in Hex encoding.
escalate_to=<CONTEXT>An example of the Refer-To header is below.
Refer-To: <sip:escalation@talkdesk.com?User-to-User=657363616c6174655f746f3d6167656e74732d7175657565%3Bencoding%3Dhex>- Security: Ensure all connections are secure. Talkdesk utilizes TLS for signaling and SRTP for media to maintain end-to-end confidentiality. Refer to the screenshot of the configuration on how to enable TLS for the SIP call.
Reporting and Billing
One of the primary benefits of this integration is the consolidation of data. Even though the "brain" of the conversation lives with a third-party provider, the interaction data remains within Talkdesk for a single source of truth.
- Reporting: Dedicated reports allow you to determine how many calls were successfully resolved by the AI agent versus how many were escalated to human agents. These reports can be downloaded on demand or scheduled for regular email delivery.
- Billing: This feature is part of the Conversation Orchestrator suite. It utilizes your existing per-minute pricing structure. Usage appears in Admin > Billing > “Conversation Orchestrator” section.
Important Information
- Context Size Limits: Due to network limitations on SIP header and message sizes, the context passed from your AI agent to Talkdesk must be concise. Talkdesk supports a maximum context size of 256 bytes. We recommend standardizing the data schema with your provider beforehand.
- Transcripts: While the voice interaction is seamless, full-text transcripts generated by the third-party AI agent are currently not accessible via Talkdesk APIs in this release.
- Future-Proofing: This integration provides a seamless path to future-proofing your contact center. By using Talkdesk as your CCaaS layer today, you can easily transition to native Agentic AI and Navigator features when you are ready to consolidate your AI stack.
Need help?
Please get in touch with your Talkdesk representative to discuss compatibility or send us a ticket via Talkdesk Support.