Types of dialers
- Predictive — dials multiple numbers ahead of agent availability based on statistical models.
- Power — dials a fixed ratio of numbers per available agent.
- Preview — agent reviews the lead before each call, lower throughput.
- Progressive — dials one at a time when an agent becomes free.
How AI enhances dialers
AI changes both ends of the dialer. On dialing: smarter pacing, time-of-day modeling, voicemail detection, and answering-machine handling reduce wasted dials. On the call: an AI voice agent can handle the entire conversation or qualify and warm-transfer to a human.
The result is higher connect rates, fewer abandoned calls (and the regulatory penalties that come with them), and dramatically lower cost per qualified outcome.
Compliance requirements
TCPA in the US restricts autodialed and prerecorded calls and limits abandoned-call rates to 3% of live answers per campaign. The National DNC Registry and state-level DNC lists must be scrubbed. GDPR and CASL add consent and recordkeeping rules in the EU and Canada respectively.
An AI dialer must enforce these by default — DNC scrubbing, consent capture, recording disclosure, and abandonment caps should be built in, not bolted on.
How to choose
- Match the dialer mode to your campaign — preview for high-value B2B, predictive for high-volume SMB.
- Verify compliance is enforced by the platform, not your team.
- Look for native CRM integration so dispositions and notes flow back automatically.
- Evaluate the AI agent layer alongside the dialer — the two together unlock the biggest gains.