Andriy Zhylenko, CEO of PortaOne, Ilya Ostrovsky, Chief Product Officer at Apifonica, and Alex Mishin, Head of Agentic AI at Apifonica, explored how CSPs can unlock new revenue streams by offering white-labeled AI voice agents. We covered the entire process – from configuring an AI agent to its seamless integration with PortaSwitch, demonstrating how CSPs can easily deploy high-margin services. Topics included the benefits of AI-driven automation, how to manage AI agents within the Cloud PBX portal, and how CSPs can boost profitability with minimal effort.
What Voice AI Means for CSPs
The webinar explored the shift from traditional voice services to AI-powered voice agents. These agents can automate tasks such as customer support, payment collections, appointment reminders, and sales calls. On average, these AI-driven calls cost 10 to 20 cents per minute, allowing CSPs to earn 1 to 2 cents in profit per minute through revenue share, all with minimal effort and no additional infrastructure.
An Integrated Experience in the CloudPBX Self-care Portal
End users can access the “Configure AI agent” feature directly from the CloudPBX self-care portal with single sign-on. Once logged in, they open the Apifonica portal to build and manage their AI agents. After configuration, the AI agent is linked to the customer’s PortaSwitch numbers or extensions, and billing is integrated natively (pay-as-you-go or subscription with a bundle of minutes).
Why CSPs Should Care
Voice used to be the core of telecom, but with shrinking margins, customers now expect more than just basic connectivity. Voice AI agents give CSPs the opportunity to add value by automating tasks like payment collections, appointment reminders, and sales outreach. By upselling Voice AI, CSPs can move from traditional voice minutes to higher-margin “smart minutes” significantly improving profitability without heavy infrastructure investments.
Inbound and Outbound Scenarios, Authorization, and Charging
For inbound calls, voice AI agents can replace traditional IVRs and handle the first line of call handling. Calls are routed through a Voice AI gateway for separate authorization and charging, ensuring that CSPs can bill for the AI service just like any other service.
For outbound calls, CSPs can initiate outbound campaigns using the same Voice AI gateway. PortaSIP handles call routing, while PortaBilling records separate CDRs and charges for the AI service. This allows CSPs to offer their customers automated calling solutions while still being able to track and bill for each AI-driven interaction.
No-code Agent Builder and Campaign Management
Visually build AI call flows without writing code. Use Apifonica’s no-code agent builder to create agent scenarios, launch outbound campaigns, upload leads (CSV/Excel), or use APIs to integrate with CRM via webhooks. Capabilities include voicemail detection, intent-based Q&A, background audio, human transfer, and multilingual TTS/STT providers.
Results and Q&A Highlights
Voice bots used by Apifonica customers handle 85% of reactivation calls automatically, reduce manual workload by 70%, and increase renewal rates by 15 to 20%.
We polled webinar participants on whether they’ve configured a Voice AI agent before and if they have customers with DIY voice agents connected to PortaSwitch via SPI. Participants reported active testing and a strong demand from customers. More generally, key takeaways from the poll and Q&A indicate the following trends and clarifications about available functionality:
- Hosted partitions are supported with provider cooperation
- Integration with third-party portals is supported via the same APIs
- Language switching during calls is supported
- EU-based hosting (Germany) is available, with plans for regional expansion
- Pricing is handled directly by Apifonica
- Integration via Add-on Mart is seamless
These insights show that the demand for Voice AI is growing and CSPs are ready to implement these solutions with minimal complexity.
The Action Plan
Adding Voice AI is easy, all you need is PortaSwitch with API access and the Add-on Mart enabled. Then, as we outlined in the webinar, CSPs can follow these steps to offer Voice AI services:
- Sign up for the Apifonica platform,
- Receive an API token; and
- Deploy the Voice AI gateway alongside PortaSwitch.
Note: this setup is compatible with PortaSwitch MR100 and expected compatibility with MR90 and later versions.
This integration is straightforward and doesn’t require complex coding or additional infrastructure. CSPs can start selling services immediately, using a no-code configuration process. We also covered setting up pricing models (pay-as-you-go or subscription-based) and using PortaBilling for invoicing, ensuring accurate billing for AI services.
