{"slug":"retell-ai","name":"Retell AI","domain":"retellai.com","verdict":"As of 2026-07-15, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok collectively rank Retell AI first for ai voice agent for customer support (one of 5 leaderboards it appears on). Source: https://modelsagree.com/product/retell-ai (modelsagree.com, CC BY 4.0).","best_rank":1,"categories":5,"brief":{"category":"best-ai-voice-agent-for-customer-support","title":"Best AI voice agent for customer support","rank":1,"of":9,"top":null,"day":"2026-07-16","why":[{"t":"natural low-latency calls","m":["ChatGPT","Gemini","Grok"],"q":"natural low-latency calls"},{"t":"natural interruption handling","m":["Gemini","Grok"],"q":"exceptionally low latency and highly natural interruption handling out-of-the-box"},{"t":"production-ready support workflows","m":["ChatGPT","Gemini","Grok","Claude"],"q":"its defaults map directly onto support-call workflows with less engineering."},{"t":"transparent per-minute pricing","m":["ChatGPT","Grok","Claude"],"q":"transparent per-minute pricing (~$0.05-0.07/min)"}],"gap":[],"fix":[{"t":"integrations require custom engineering","m":["ChatGPT","Gemini"],"q":"requiring custom software engineering to integrate with legacy CRMs and databases."},{"t":"not a full CX suite","m":["Claude"],"q":"It's a phone-call specialist, not a full CX suite"}]},"entries":[{"slug":"best-ai-voice-agent-for-customer-support","title":"Best AI voice agent for customer support","rank":1,"of":9,"score":19,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":1,"Claude":2,"Gemini":1,"Grok":1},"reason":"Best overall balance of natural low-latency calls, dependable telephony, flexible workflows, simulation testing, analytics, guardrails, and transparent pay-as-you-go pricing; assumes a team can handle light API and prompt work.","reasons":[{"model":"ChatGPT","reason":"Best overall balance of natural low-latency calls, dependable telephony, flexible workflows, simulation testing, analytics, guardrails, and transparent pay-as-you-go pricing; assumes a team can handle light API and prompt work."},{"model":"Gemini","reason":"Edged out Vapi in a near-tie due to its superior proprietary conversational engine that delivers exceptionally low latency and highly natural interruption handling out-of-the-box, making it the most production-ready option for mid-market support."},{"model":"Grok","reason":"Tops real-world performance with sub-second latency, natural interruption handling, strong telephony integrations (Twilio/SIP), model/voice flexibility (OpenAI/Anthropic + ElevenLabs etc.), transparent per-minute pricing (~$0.05-0.07/min), fast deployment for support use cases like routing/troubleshooting/escalation, excellent observability/transcripts/analytics; proven in production customer support without heavy vendor management."},{"model":"Claude","reason":"Purpose-built for automating real phone-support operations — warm/cold transfer, IVR navigation, batch calling, verified caller ID, post-call analysis, and SOC 2/HIPAA compliance out of the box, with pragmatic per-minute pricing; near-tie with Vapi, ranked ahead because its defaults map directly onto support-call workflows with less engineering."}],"fixes":[{"model":"ChatGPT","fix":"Complex support logic and backend integrations still require engineering."},{"model":"Claude","fix":"It's a phone-call specialist, not a full CX suite — no native chat/email channels or deep ticketing intelligence, so omnichannel support teams still need another platform alongside it."},{"model":"Gemini","fix":"It is a developer-centric API rather than a pre-packaged support solution, requiring custom software engineering to integrate with legacy CRMs and databases."}],"updated":"2026-07-15","rank_history":{"days":["2026-07-14","2026-07-15"],"ranks":[1,1]},"api":"https://modelsagree.com/api/v1/best/best-ai-voice-agent-for-customer-support.json"},{"slug":"best-voice-agent-platforms-for-customer-support","title":"Best voice agent platforms for customer support","rank":1,"of":9,"score":18,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":3,"Claude":1,"Gemini":1,"Grok":1},"reason":"Purpose-built for support call automation rather than generic voice infra — batch/inbound call handling, IVR navigation, warm transfer, post-call analysis, and prebuilt telephony/SIP plus CRM and Zendesk-style integrations make it the fastest path from \"we get 5k support calls a month\" to a working deployed agent; transparent per-minute pricing and strong latency/interruption handling suit the typical mid-market support team this category serves.","reasons":[{"model":"Claude","reason":"Purpose-built for support call automation rather than generic voice infra — batch/inbound call handling, IVR navigation, warm transfer, post-call analysis, and prebuilt telephony/SIP plus CRM and Zendesk-style integrations make it the fastest path from \"we get 5k support calls a month\" to a working deployed agent; transparent per-minute pricing and strong latency/interruption handling suit the typical mid-market support team this category serves."},{"model":"Gemini","reason":"Offers class-leading sub-second latency, excellent state tracking, and conversational stability, making it the most production-ready option for the typical practitioner who needs to deploy agents quickly without building everything from scratch. It is in a near-tie with Vapi, but edges it out due to its superior developer dashboard and easier CRM integrations."},{"model":"Grok","reason":"Consistently tops independent 2026 tests for sub-second latency (~600ms), natural interruption handling, strong multi-turn context and CRM/helpdesk integrations, transparent pay-as-you-go pricing (~$0.07/min + usage with no platform fee), HIPAA/SOC2 compliance on standard plans, and reliable production performance on real support calls (inbound/outbound, escalations, post-call analytics); delivers best balance of speed, control, and deployability for most teams without heavy engineering or six-figure contracts."},{"model":"ChatGPT","reason":"Best value for practitioners building custom support agents, with strong conversational quality, flexible APIs and no-code tooling, simulation testing, analytics, transparent usage pricing, and fast deployment"}],"fixes":[{"model":"ChatGPT","fix":"Teams must design and maintain more of the support logic, integrations, and governance themselves"},{"model":"Claude","fix":"It is an orchestration layer over third-party STT/LLM/TTS — costs stack across vendors and teams wanting deep model-level control or on-prem deployment will outgrow it."},{"model":"Gemini","fix":"It charges a significant premium on top of raw API and telephony costs, making it cost-prohibitive for high-volume deployments."}],"updated":"2026-07-17","api":"https://modelsagree.com/api/v1/best/best-voice-agent-platforms-for-customer-support.json"},{"slug":"best-voice-agent-platforms-for-outbound-appointment-booking","title":"Best voice agent platforms for outbound appointment booking","rank":1,"of":7,"score":18,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":1,"Claude":2,"Gemini":1,"Grok":2},"reason":"Best overall balance of natural calls, low latency, reliable interruption handling, batch outbound campaigns, live calendar booking, transfers, simulation testing, analytics, and pay-as-you-go value; narrowly beats Synthflow, assuming consented warm-lead or reminder calling","reasons":[{"model":"ChatGPT","reason":"Best overall balance of natural calls, low latency, reliable interruption handling, batch outbound campaigns, live calendar booking, transfers, simulation testing, analytics, and pay-as-you-go value; narrowly beats Synthflow, assuming consented warm-lead or reminder calling"},{"model":"Gemini","reason":"Delivers the strongest combination of ultra-low latency (~600ms), robust state-tracking during user interruptions, built-in HIPAA compliance, and turnkey calendar integrations (e.g., Cal.com), making it the most reliable production choice for outbound scheduling workflows."},{"model":"Claude","reason":"Purpose-built for production phone agents with a strong balance of visual flow-builder and API, reliable outbound campaigns, native calendar/booking and CRM integrations, warm transfer, and low latency — a faster path to a working appointment-booker than raw Vapi."},{"model":"Grok","reason":"Sub-700ms latency with strong interruption handling and natural conversation quality that improves real booking conversion, native calendar sync (Cal.com/Google), reliable batch outbound for reminders/qualification, production tooling (simulation, analytics, HIPAA self-serve), and balanced no-code + API path at ~$0.07/min that works for typical practitioners without enterprise contracts"}],"fixes":[{"model":"ChatGPT","fix":"Production setup still requires careful workflow, telephony, and pricing-component configuration, so it is not fully turnkey for a nontechnical solo operator"},{"model":"Claude","fix":"Less deeply customizable than Vapi for unusual logic, and per-minute costs climb quickly on high-volume outbound dialing."},{"model":"Gemini","fix":"Bound by a managed platform architecture, making it unsuitable for engineering teams requiring full on-premise data sovereignty or direct control over low-level media pipelines."},{"model":"Grok","fix":"Outbound concurrency and pure dialer scale lag the volume specialists, so less optimal for massive cold-list campaigns needing unlimited parallel dials"}],"updated":"2026-08-10","rank_history":{"days":["2026-08-03","2026-08-10"],"ranks":[1,2]},"api":"https://modelsagree.com/api/v1/best/best-voice-agent-platforms-for-outbound-appointment-booking.json"},{"slug":"best-voice-agent-platform","title":"Best voice agent platform","rank":2,"of":9,"score":14,"appearances":4,"modelRanks":{"ChatGPT":2,"Claude":4,"Gemini":3,"Grok":1},"reason":"Lowest latency real-time conversations, excellent interruption handling, native telephony/PSTN integration, strong production monitoring and analytics for scalable customer support","reasons":[{"model":"Grok","reason":"Lowest latency real-time conversations, excellent interruption handling, native telephony/PSTN integration, strong production monitoring and analytics for scalable customer support"},{"model":"ChatGPT","reason":"Near-tied for first and strongest managed choice for production phone agents, combining low latency, dependable telephony, transfers, testing, analytics, guardrails, and straightforward pay-as-you-go deployment."},{"model":"Gemini","reason":"Delivers the most reliable, polished, and natural conversational turn-taking and interruption handling out of the box with sub-800ms latency, making it the fastest route to a production-grade telephony voice agent."},{"model":"Claude","reason":"Phone-first voice agent platform with excellent conversation flow control, batch calling, and compliance posture (SOC 2, HIPAA) — the pragmatic pick for call-center automation like appointment scheduling and lead qualification, with simpler mental model than Vapi for pure telephony work. Near-tie with ElevenLabs Agents; Retell wins for phone ops, ElevenLabs for voice quality."}],"fixes":[{"model":"ChatGPT","fix":"Less infrastructure freedom and potentially higher scaled cost than assembling an open stack."},{"model":"Claude","fix":"Narrower phone-centric scope — weaker fit for web/in-app voice experiences or heavily custom pipelines, and voice quality depends on third-party TTS you pay through."},{"model":"Gemini","fix":"Highly opinionated and managed, offering less architectural control and customization of the underlying pipeline logic than raw frameworks."},{"model":"Grok","fix":"Broaden no-code builder options for non-developer teams to compete with pure visual platforms"}],"updated":"2026-07-15","rank_history":{"days":["2026-06-29","2026-06-30","2026-07-08","2026-07-09","2026-07-10","2026-07-12","2026-07-13","2026-07-14","2026-07-15"],"ranks":[2,2,2,2,1,1,3,2,3]},"reasoning_shift":[{"model":"Gemini","from":"2026-07-14","to":"2026-07-15","added":[{"t":"sub-800ms latency","q":"sub-800ms latency"},{"t":"fastest production route","q":"the fastest route to a production-grade telephony voice agent"}],"dropped":[{"t":"HIPAA/SOC 2 compliance","q":"HIPAA/SOC 2 compliance"}]},{"model":"ChatGPT","from":"2026-07-14","to":"2026-07-15","added":[{"t":"guardrails","q":"guardrails"},{"t":"higher scaled cost","q":"potentially higher scaled cost than assembling an open stack"}],"dropped":[{"t":"batch calling","q":"batch calling"},{"t":"custom multimodal apps","q":"less compelling for deeply custom multimodal apps"}]},{"model":"Claude","from":"2026-07-14","to":"2026-07-15","added":[{"t":"conversation flow control","q":"excellent conversation flow control"},{"t":"simpler mental model","q":"simpler mental model than Vapi for pure telephony work"},{"t":"third-party TTS costs","q":"voice quality depends on third-party TTS you pay through"}],"dropped":[{"t":"warm transfers","q":"warm transfers"},{"t":"post-call analysis","q":"post-call analysis"}]}],"api":"https://modelsagree.com/api/v1/best/best-voice-agent-platform.json"},{"slug":"best-realtime-infrastructure-for-voice-ai","title":"Best realtime infrastructure for voice AI","rank":6,"of":9,"score":3,"appearances":2,"modelRanks":{"Claude":5,"Gemini":4},"reason":"A managed conversational AI platform featuring proprietary low-latency speech-to-speech handling, built-in interruption management, and deep telephony integration, providing a highly realistic conversational flow. It is in a near-tie with Vapi but ranks slightly lower due to a more closed model ecosystem.","reasons":[{"model":"Gemini","reason":"A managed conversational AI platform featuring proprietary low-latency speech-to-speech handling, built-in interruption management, and deep telephony integration, providing a highly realistic conversational flow. It is in a near-tie with Vapi but ranks slightly lower due to a more closed model ecosystem."},{"model":"Claude","reason":"Managed voice-agent platform tuned specifically for dependable telephony agents — tight turn-taking and latency, call routing, and analytics make it a fast, reliable pick for call-center-style deployments; a near-tie with Vapi, edging it on phone-first reliability while trailing on general flexibility."}],"fixes":[{"model":"Claude","fix":"Narrower than the infra players — its telephony focus and managed model mean limited low-level control and lock-in if you outgrow the phone-agent use case."},{"model":"Gemini","fix":"Developers are locked into Retell's proprietary orchestration and hosting platform, preventing customization of the underlying WebRTC routing."}],"updated":"2026-07-13","rank_history":{"days":["2026-07-12","2026-07-13"],"ranks":[5,6]},"reasoning_shift":[{"model":"Gemini","from":"2026-07-12","to":"2026-07-13","added":[{"t":"low-latency speech-to-speech handling","q":"proprietary low-latency speech-to-speech handling"},{"t":"deep telephony integration","q":"deep telephony integration"},{"t":"near-tie with Vapi","q":"It is in a near-tie with Vapi but ranks slightly lower due to a more closed model ecosystem."}],"dropped":[{"t":"conversational state handling","q":"built-in conversational state handling"},{"t":"robust telemetry","q":"robust telemetry"}]}],"api":"https://modelsagree.com/api/v1/best/best-realtime-infrastructure-for-voice-ai.json"}],"page":"https://modelsagree.com/product/retell-ai","check":"https://modelsagree.com/check?q=Retell%20AI","updated":"2026-08-10T18:18:45.051Z","attribution":"modelsagree.com, CC BY 4.0"}