Does your website need an AI voice chatbot, a text chatbot or both?

What is the difference between an AI voice chatbot and a text chatbot?

Both can answer from your own content. The difference is the channel: visitors talk to a voice chatbot through their microphone and hear its replies, or type to a text chatbot and read its answers. Vendors also call a voice chatbot a voice agent, a voicebot or a voice assistant.

The labels won’t help you decide. Chatbase, Fin, Tidio, Crisp and DocsBot all call their assistants AI agents, and DocsBot’s homepage calls them AI chatbots too. Some, including Chatbase and Fin, can also take actions such as looking up an order. The more useful questions are how your visitors want to ask and what the agent may answer from.

When does a text chatbot work better than voice?

Typing wins when the exact words matter or when speaking aloud is awkward. Chatbase’s voice settings make the same point: an option lets callers type during a call for “details that are easier to type than to say, such as names, emails, or URLs”.

• A visitor needs to share an error message, a code snippet or a link.
• The answer has steps or links they will want to copy or come back to.
• They are in an open office, on a train or browsing late at night.
• They are deaf or hard of hearing, or prefer to read.

When does a voice chatbot help more than typing?

Voice helps when a question is easier to say than to write. Setup questions are a good example, because the visitor has to describe what they have already tried.

• Explaining a sequence: what they set up and where it stopped working.
• Describing a problem they can’t name yet, with follow-up questions to narrow it down.
• Keeping their hands on the task, such as working through a setup screen while they talk.
• Preferring to talk. Some people find speaking easier than typing.

Which AI chatbots also offer voice?

Several chat-first tools now offer voice, often for phone calls. If you want typed chat and voice in one widget, Chatbase or DocsBot is a better fit than Kawl Now. If you want AI on your phone line, Fin Voice, Chatbase and DocsBot all document phone options; Kawl Now has no phone number.

Each summary below comes from the vendor’s official pages, checked on 8 October 2026.

• Chatbase added inbound phone calls in April 2026 and now takes them on a Twilio number or through your own SIP trunk. Its chat bubble also offers voice calls, and its pricing page lists Voice from the Standard plan. Our Chatbase comparison covers its plans and voice settings.
• DocsBot Voice Agents are in beta, with voice chat and live transcription in its website widget, a Twilio number or your existing number through a SIP trunk, and realtime voice agents from its Standard plan.
• Fin is the AI agent from the company formerly called Intercom, which Salesforce acquired in September 2026. It answers live chat through Messenger and works in the Intercom Helpdesk or another help desk. Fin Voice handles phone support once you connect your telephony provider, on a custom pricing plan for select customers. Our Fin comparison covers Fin Voice in detail.
• Tidio offers its Lyro AI Agent on its own customer service platform, or you can add Lyro to Zendesk, Salesforce or another help desk. Its pricing page lists live video calls among its live chat and ticketing features, so ask Tidio whether Lyro can answer by voice.
• Crisp lets you deploy its AI agent, Hugo, on messaging channels: its web chat widget, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and email. Its pricing page also lists a Phone feature for answering and making calls from Crisp, so ask whether Hugo can take calls.

What does Kawl Now offer if you choose voice?

Kawl Now adds a browser voice widget to your SaaS website. Visitors type a short topic, allow the microphone and talk. Before the call starts, the widget tells them they’re speaking with AI and that a transcript will be saved. During the call they can read live captions, mute or hang up.

Support and sales agents each have their own knowledge: FAQs and selected .md, .mdx or .txt files from GitHub for support, and notes you write for sales. Website URL import is switched off, so add website content as a sales note. Your team approves every source before the agent uses it, and a GitHub document needs approval again each time it’s synced.

• The first 50 conversations per workspace are free, shared by support, sales and your own tests.
• Each browser call has a hard 10-minute limit.
• Paid calls aren’t available yet, so no payment is collected and new calls stop once the 50 free conversations are used.
• It answers questions from approved knowledge. It can’t look up customer accounts or connect to a CRM or calendar, and it has no phone number or text chat.

How do you run a voice chatbot and a text chatbot together?

Kawl Now has no text chat, so keep your chatbot or help centre for typed questions and add voice beside it.

• Give both the same facts. Kawl Now doesn’t read your chatbot’s knowledge, so add matching answers as approved sources.
• Label the buttons so visitors can tell them apart. You set the voice button’s label, up to 30 characters, and its colour.
• Check the layout. The Kawl Now button sits in the bottom-right corner, so test it beside your chat widget before you turn on customer calls.
• Keep a route to your team. Human handover is an early release: once your team verifies a UK or US phone number and turns it on, a caller can choose Talk to a human, and your team hears a private briefing first. Customer routing is still being tested, so make sure visitors can still reach you by chat or email.
• Compare the questions people type with the ones they ask aloud. Your dashboard keeps each call’s topic and transcript.

Common questions