8 best PolyAI alternatives in 2027

The best PolyAI alternatives in 2027 are Computer, by DevRev, Kore.ai, Cognigy, Quiq, Parloa, Replicant, Retell AI, and Bland.

PolyAI sells voice AI agents for contact centers, not character-chat apps with similar names, and shows no platform prices.

If the goal is one agent platform that handles voice, chat, and email with shared context, which PolyAI alternative fits?

This guide compares eight PolyAI alternatives on key channels, standout features, handoff to a person, G2 rating, and pricing. It also sets out seven criteria to weigh in 2027: supported voice workflows, transfer with context, systems it can act in, grounding and shared context, languages, post-call records and follow-through, and pricing you can predict.

TL;DR

These are the top alternatives to PolyAI:

1. Computer, by DevRev: Best for shared customer memory
2. Kore.ai: Best for customer and employee agents
3. Cognigy: Best for existing contact centers
4. Quiq: Best for voice plus messaging apps
5. Parloa: Best for replacing phone menus
6. Replicant: Best for phased call rollout
7. Retell AI: Best for developers, posted rates
8. Bland: Best for regulated phone calls

Why do teams look for PolyAI alternatives?

Teams look for PolyAI alternatives mainly because of unpublished platform prices, voice-first packaging, handoff set up destination by destination, and systems that center on telephony.

A PolyAI alternative is any voice AI platform that can take over the inbound calls a team runs on PolyAI. It resolves what the caller needs from your records, transfers the call to a person with context when it can’t, and logs the call afterward. Some also carry that context into chat and email.

PolyAI remains a capable voice platform. Four things still push teams to look elsewhere.

• Platform prices aren’t published: PolyAI says ongoing use of the voice agent is priced per minute and that platform prices aren’t published, so teams contact PolyAI for a quote. Only the model-only Dialog-RSN-1 API shows a rate, at 2¢ per connected minute.
• Voice leads the product: PolyAI’s home page names voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web chat, and email as channels. It doesn’t say how context moves from a call into a chat thread.
• Handoff is configured per destination: PolyAI’s handoff docs describe three SIP transfer methods (REFER, INVITE, and BYE). Context travels in custom SIP headers and through APIs, and PolyAI configures which fields the handoff API exposes for your project.
• The systems center on telephony: PolyAI’s integrations page groups telephony platforms such as Genesys, Five9, and Twilio with CRM and service tools such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk. Anything else goes through its Agent Developer Kit, which PolyAI describes as connecting to anything with an API.

How do the PolyAI alternatives compare for 2027?

The table compares eight alternatives on key channels, standout features, handoff to a person, G2 rating, and pricing.

How should you evaluate these PolyAI alternatives?

We assessed each tool against seven editorial criteria, led by supported voice workflows (20%), using vendor pages and G2. Moving a call line touches telephony, the systems behind each call, and the team that takes the transfers.

The criteria run from most to least important for a team that wants voice, chat, and email on one agent, and each percentage is its weight. Telephony, routing, and workforce tooling belong to a separate comparison.

• Supported voice workflows (20%): Which inbound call types does the agent resolve from start to finish, and which does it route to a person early?
• Transfer with context (20%): Is it a cold transfer or a warm one, is the conversation summarized, and what does the person see when the call arrives?
• Systems it can act in (15%): Can the agent read and write in your CRM, ticketing tool, and billing system, or only look records up?
• Grounding and shared context (15%): Do answers cite source records, do permissions follow the source systems, and does a caller’s history carry from a call into chat and email?
• Languages (10%): Which languages does the agent speak, and does it switch mid-call?
• Post-call records and follow-through (10%): Is each call logged and summarized, are handled conversations reviewed, and do sensitive actions pause for approval? Look for AI agents that stay governed after they act.
• Pricing you can predict (10%): Is the rate per minute, per interaction, or per outcome, and is it posted?

These percentages express editorial priorities, not calculated vendor scores or a weighted ranking. Teams should test the criteria against their own workflows.

How to weight by team stage: developer-led teams should lean on voice call handling, languages, and pricing. Contact centers on Genesys, Five9, or similar should lean on handoff and systems. Enterprises that want one agent across channels should lean on shared context and controls.

How these tools differ: some are voice agents that plug into the contact center you have, some are platforms that span voice and digital channels, and one connects voice to the same memory as chat and email. That split drives most of the differences in the entries below.

What are the 8 best PolyAI alternatives?

1. Computer, by DevRev: Best for shared customer memory

Rating: 4.3 out of 5 on G2 from 210 reviews.

Overview

DevRev is a Palo Alto company founded in 2020 by Dheeraj Pandey and Manoj Agarwal, formerly of Nutanix, and backed by Khosla Ventures and Mayfield.

Voice AI is a channel on Customer Agent, the customer-facing agent in Computer, by DevRev, and DevRev says it is not a separate product to bolt on. Computer Memory gives support, product, and engineering shared context, so a caller’s orders and history are already there when the call starts.

Computer, by DevRev, is the voice option for teams whose calls need the same customer and engineering context as chat.

Standout features

• Voice workflows: DevRev says Voice AI is a channel on Customer Agent and works in up to 70 languages, so calls are handled by the same agent that serves chat and email.
• Grounding: DevRev says answers cite specific source records and that permissions are preserved from every source system. Computer Memory is a permission-aware knowledge graph built from connected systems, and DevRev describes one agent across customer channels. Our AI knowledge management guide explains the foundation.
• Systems it acts in: Customer Agent checks error logs in Datadog, pulls the order from Shopify, replays the customer’s session, and reads the console output, then resolves from what it finds. Computer AirSync is a two-way sync with systems such as Jira, Salesforce, Zendesk, GitHub, and Slack.
• Build and approvals: Teams build agents in Agent Studio with no-code templates, and sensitive actions pause for approval.
• Transfer with context: Customer Agent can summarize the conversation and escalate to a person when needed, and Voice AI can transfer a call to a configured human destination. What the receiving agent sees depends on the telephony setup.
• Post-call follow-through: DevRev says every call is logged, summarized, and recorded with consent. Computer also reviews the agent’s conversations each week and brings a short set of fixes, and the team approves, edits, or skips each one.
• Testing: Agents can be tested in a sandbox on real data before they go live.
• Where it works: Computer, by DevRev, works in Slack and Teams, and on desktop, mobile, and web.
• Trust: DevRev’s Trust Center shows SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022, plus an AI penetration testing assessment.

Pricing: Contact DevRev for pricing.

Pros

• Calls, chats, and emails draw on one permission-aware memory.
• Customer Agent acts in systems such as Datadog and Shopify as well as on the knowledge base.
• Answers cite source records, and permissions follow the source systems.
• Every call is logged, summarized, and recorded with consent, and handled conversations get a weekly review with approved fixes.

Cons

• It is a platform investment, so setup and onboarding take longer than a voice-only tool.
• It is not a replacement for a full contact-center stack. Voice AI connects through SIP-based telephony, so compare telephony, routing, and workforce tooling separately.

Computer, by DevRev, vs. PolyAI: PolyAI is built around voice and connects to telephony and contact center platforms, where Computer, by DevRev, adds voice as a channel sharing Computer Memory with chat and email. Computer, by DevRev, is not a replacement for a full contact-center stack. PolyAI shows no platform prices and Computer, by DevRev, is priced by contact.

What reviewers say

• Love: Breaking down silos. A senior product manager writes that “DevRev’s standout value is how it actively breaks down the traditional silos separating support, product, and engineering” (May 5, 2026; incentivized review).
• Complain: Onboarding takes real effort. The same reviewer writes that “this is absolutely not a plug-and-play solution; initial onboarding requires serious effort” (same review).

2. Kore.ai: Best for customer and employee agents

Rating: 4.6 out of 5 on G2 from 507 reviews.

Overview

Kore.ai was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Orlando. Kore.ai sells AI for Service for customer cases and AI for Work for employee requests, both on its Artemis Platform. Kore.ai’s service page pairs voice and digital agents with agent assistance, quality management, and a contact center.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Voice agents with turn-taking and fast responses, sold as part of one service offering with digital agents.
• Channels: Voice, chat, email, messaging, and digital channels, with customers handed from channel to channel.
• Handoff: Context-rich handoffs, routing that unifies AI agents and live agents, and a supervisor desktop where supervisors can step into live conversations.
• Systems it acts in: Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics 365, ServiceNow, and SAP, plus NICE CXone, Five9, Talkdesk, Genesys, and Amazon Connect.
• Controls: Kore.ai says policies are enforced outside the language model, with audit visibility.

Pricing: None published; custom quote.

Pros

• Voice and digital channels on one platform, with employee agents on the same base.
• Named CRM and contact center integrations.

Cons

• No published price.
• A reviewer reports occasional bugs when configuring complex flows.

Kore.ai vs. PolyAI: Kore.ai covers customer and employee work with voice and digital agents on one platform, where PolyAI is built around voice. Neither publishes platform prices.

What reviewers say

• Love: Easy to use. A software developer at an enterprise writes, “What I like best about Kore.ai is how intuitive and user-friendly the platform is” (July 27, 2026).
• Complain: Bugs in complex flows. The same reviewer writes that “the platform can occasionally present unexpected bugs or inconsistent behavior, especially when configuring and testing more complex conversational flows” (same review).

3. Cognigy: Best for existing contact centers

Rating: 4.6 out of 5 on G2 from 13 reviews.

Overview

Cognigy was founded in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 2016 and is now part of NiCE, which completed its acquisition in September 2025. Cognigy is an AI agent platform for contact centers, sold as NiCE Cognigy. Its voice page describes Voice AI Agents that handle phone conversations and connect to a contact center on premises or in the cloud.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Voice AI Agents take inbound calls and run outbound ones, with configurable voices. Cognigy says they speak over 100 languages and can translate in real time for support staff.
• Handoff: When a call is time-sensitive or complex, the agent captures what the caller needs and routes it to the best-suited available agent, with context.
• Handover providers: Cognigy’s handover docs name Live Agent, Salesforce, NiCE CXone, Genesys Cloud, 8x8, and RingCentral Engage.
• Systems it connects to: Avaya, AWS, Genesys, NiCE, Microsoft, and 8x8 appear as integration partners.
• Channels: Phone and voice, plus chat and messaging. Email isn’t stated.

Pricing: Not published; the site has no pricing page.

Pros

• Built to sit on top of an existing contact center platform.
• Handover options for several contact center providers.

Cons

• No published price.
• Email isn’t stated as a channel.
• The voice gateway installs alongside the main platform and isn’t used on its own, per Cognigy’s documentation.

Cognigy vs. PolyAI: Cognigy connects voice and messaging agents to the contact center platforms a team already runs, where PolyAI sets up each SIP handoff destination. Neither publishes platform prices.

4. Quiq: Best for voice plus messaging apps

Rating: 4.7 out of 5 on G2 from 45 reviews.

Overview

Quiq is based in Bozeman, Montana, and Mike Myer is its founder and CEO. Quiq sells AI Agents, Voice AI Agents, AI Assistants for human agents, and a Digital Contact Center. Its voice agents handle calls in natural conversation, with sample calls on its home page for a pricing question, a warranty claim, and a product return.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Voice AI Agents deliver natural conversations at scale and send follow-up links by text during a call.
• Channels: Quiq’s channels page shows voice, email, SMS, web chat, WhatsApp, Apple Messages, RCS Business Messaging, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram.
• Handoff: Quiq says calls, chats, and escalations move between AI and human agents, with context kept intact, where a cold transfer would drop it.
• Systems it acts in: Quiq’s integrations include Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Kustomer, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Oracle, plus RingCentral, Cisco, Five9, Genesys, Amazon Connect, and LivePerson.

Pricing: Usage-based, with no prices or plans shown. Quiq’s usage-based pricing says to meet an expert for custom pricing.

Pros

• Voice sits beside email, SMS, and messaging apps in one product.
• A long channel range, including Apple Messages and RCS.

Cons

• No published prices.
• The pages read don’t name supported languages.

Quiq vs. PolyAI: Quiq puts voice, email, SMS, and messaging apps in one workspace, where PolyAI is built around voice. Neither publishes platform prices.

What reviewers say

• Love: Unified messaging. A senior manager of customer solutions at a mid-market company writes, “Quiq has transformed our customer support by providing truly unified omnichannel messaging” (February 2, 2026).
• Complain: Advanced features take time. The same reviewer writes that “While Quiq is robust overall, there’s a slight learning curve for some of the more advanced features initially” (same review).

5. Parloa: Best for replacing phone menus

Rating: 4.3 out of 5 on G2 from 106 reviews.

Overview

Parloa was founded by Malte Kosub and Stefan Ostwald, and it has offices in Berlin, New York, and London, among others. Parloa sells AI agents for enterprise customer service. Its IVR replacement page describes spoken agents that understand natural-language intent, with no decision tree, placed in front of the existing contact center platform.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Inbound and outbound calls come in through telephony platforms such as Genesys, Amazon Connect, Cisco, Avaya, Five9, and Talkdesk.
• Handoff: Genesys, Five9, and RingCentral support warm transfer to a person. Zendesk escalations carry the transcript, and Salesforce Service Cloud transfers arrive with the case summary pre-filled.
• Systems it acts in: Parloa’s integration catalog names Salesforce case updates, ServiceNow incidents, SAP orders and billing, Shopify returns, and Stripe payments and refunds.
• Channels: Voice, plus chat through Zoom Contact Center and UJET, and messaging through Bird.

Pricing: Consumption-based, per minute for voice and per interaction for chat, with no rates published. Parloa’s consumption pricing says plans are built around each deployment, and that outcome-based pricing is supported.

Pros

• Named actions in CRM, ERP, and payment systems.
• Warm transfer on several contact center platforms.

Cons

• No published rates.
• Chat comes through contact center partners, and email isn’t stated.

Parloa vs. PolyAI: Parloa names actions in business systems and warm transfer through contact center partners, where PolyAI sets up each SIP transfer method per destination. Neither publishes platform prices.

What reviewers say

• Love: Testing before launch. A manager at a small company writes, “The simulations and evaluations let us test and fix issues before real customers ever talk to the agent” (July 27, 2026).
• Complain: Learning curve. The same reviewer writes that “the platform has so many capabilities that there’s a bit of a learning curve at the start” (same review).

6. Replicant: Best for phased call rollout

Rating: 4.7 out of 5 on G2 from 45 reviews.

Overview

Replicant was founded in 2017 by Gadi Shamia and Benjamin Gleitzman. Replicant sells AI agents for customer service, with Conversation Automation to build and run the agents and Conversation Intelligence to analyze conversations. Replicant’s platform overview says agents go live gradually and are A/B tested.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Calls are the main focus, and Replicant describes agents that aim to resolve a call the first time.
• Handoff: A warm handoff whenever a person should take over.
• Systems it acts in: Replicant’s connector page names CRM tools such as Salesforce, Zendesk, and ServiceNow, CCaaS platforms such as Genesys, Five9, and Amazon Connect, and ERP and payment systems such as SAP and Stripe. It doesn’t say what the agents do in each one.
• Channels: Voice, chat, and SMS.
• Setup: Replicant says agents can be edited later through natural-language instructions, with embedded delivery experts helping at the start.

Pricing: Not published; the pages read offer a demo request.

Pros

• A phased rollout with testing before agents take more calls.
• Named CRM and contact center integrations.

Cons

• No published price.
• Email isn’t stated as a channel.

Replicant vs. PolyAI: Replicant centers on calls resolved by AI with a warm handoff, plus chat and SMS, where PolyAI sets up each transfer by SIP method. Neither publishes platform prices.

7. Retell AI: Best for developers, posted rates

Rating: 4.8 out of 5 on G2 from 2,639 reviews.

Overview

Retell AI is a voice agent platform for building, deploying, and monitoring agents that handle inbound and outbound calls. Its posted rates cover voice, chat, and add-ons.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Inbound and outbound calls, outbound campaigns with pacing, retries, and voicemail handling, and IVR navigation.
• Handoff: Retell AI’s call transfer page describes cold transfer, warm transfer with a contextual briefing, and agentic warm transfer. Per Retell AI’s transfer docs, destinations can be a phone number or a SIP URI.
• Systems it acts in: Telephony, CCaaS, CRM, knowledge bases, and calendars, with named integrations for Twilio, Vonage, HubSpot, Make, and n8n.
• Channels: Voice, chat, SMS, and an API. Email isn’t stated.

Pricing: Voice agents cost $0.07 to $0.31 per minute and chat agents start at $0.002 per message, with $10 in free credits for new accounts. Enterprise pricing is custom.

Pros

• Rates are posted, with a worked example of about $0.11 per minute.
• Three transfer types, including a transfer agent that screens the handoff.

Cons

• Telephony, text-to-speech, and model charges add to the per-minute total.
• Email isn’t stated as a channel.

Retell AI vs. PolyAI: Retell AI posts voice rates and offers three transfer types, where PolyAI shows no platform rates and sets up SIP handoffs per destination.

What reviewers say

• Love: Natural, low-latency calls. A reviewer at a small company writes, “The natural conversations, low latency, and easy integration with APIs and business workflows make it especially useful for automating customer calls and support” (September 30, 2026).
• Complain: Cost at volume. The same reviewer writes that “The main thing I dislike about Retell AI is that the pricing can get expensive as call volume increases” (same review).

8. Bland: Best for regulated phone calls

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 on G2 from 11 reviews.

Overview

Bland is an enterprise voice AI platform for building, running, and monitoring AI phone agents. It says agents handle inbound and outbound calls and offer visibility into each decision, with changes tested before they go live.

Standout features

• Voice calls: Inbound and outbound calls, with 40+ languages natively and real-time translation in 23, and agents can switch languages mid-call.
• Handoff: In a warm transfer, the agent calls a person, briefs them using a briefing prompt, merges the calls, and introduces the customer, per Bland’s warm transfer docs.
• Systems it acts in: Tools let the agent take actions during a call, such as creating a Salesforce contact, scheduling on Cal.com, sending a Slack message, or calling your own API, per Bland’s tools guide.
• Channels: Phone, SMS, and web per its home page. Email isn’t stated there.

Pricing: Start has no platform fee, with talk time at $0.14 per minute and transfer time at $0.05. Build is $299 a month, with $0.12 and $0.04 per minute. Enterprise is custom. Bland’s plan rates say telephony is billed separately.

Pros

• Posted rates and a plan with no platform fee.
• A documented warm transfer with a briefing for the person.

Cons

• Telephony is billed on top of the per-minute rate.
• Chat and email aren’t stated on the home page.

Bland vs. PolyAI: Bland posts per-minute rates and documents its warm transfer, where PolyAI shows no platform rates and sets up SIP handoffs per destination.

What reviewers say

• Love: Call latency. A senior web consultant at a small company writes, “Latency was the first thing that got me. It’s fast enough to feel natural, which is non-negotiable for real phone calls” (April 9, 2026).
• Complain: Learning curve. The same reviewer writes that “There is a learning curve if you actually want to do more than basic use cases” (same review).

Other PolyAI alternatives worth considering

• Cresta calls itself the AI operating system for customer experience, with an AI Agent for customer conversations and tools for human agents. It serves contact centers and publishes no price.
• Sierra deploys one agent across chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, and voice and prices on outcomes.
• Vapi is a developer voice platform with a $0.05 per minute hosting fee, plus transcription, model, voice, and telephony billed at provider cost. It has a $0 starting package, Core at $29 a month, and a HIPAA add-on at $2,000 a month.
• Goodcall is an AI phone answering service for small and local businesses that bills by unique customer, with no per-minute charge. Starter is $79 a month for up to 100 customers, Growth is $129 for 500, and Scale is $299 for 2,000.
• Synthflow calls itself an AI voice platform for enterprises, with enterprise contracts starting at $30,000 a year, scoped by call volume, concurrency, and telephony setup.

How do you switch from PolyAI?

Switching from PolyAI means rebuilding the agent and re-pointing handoffs, while your CRM, ticketing, and billing records stay where they are and call history can come out through an API. What carries over is the telephony setup and the history of past calls.

What carries over

Your CRM, ticketing, and billing records stay where they are, so connectors are re-authorized and not exported. PolyAI’s docs describe a Conversations API that returns full conversations with transcripts, so call history can come out through an API. Your carrier can stay in place, since PolyAI says your own carrier connects over SIP at no charge.

What needs manual attention

The agent itself needs rebuilding: flows, tools, and brand voice built in PolyAI’s Agent Studio don’t move over, so each call type is rebuilt on the new platform. Handoff destinations, SIP headers, and the fields passed to the person need re-pointing, and so do the integrations set up through PolyAI’s Connect Portal.

Three checks before switching

Before switching, test whether:

• The new platform handles your top call types in your languages.
• The vendor offers a trial or proof of concept on live calls.
• Both platforms can take calls in parallel for a few weeks before you cut over.

These checks reduce uncertainty, but validate a sample migration and a recovery plan before a full cutover. Running voice on one platform and chat on another is a fair interim state, as long as each has a named owner.

How do you choose a PolyAI alternative?

Choose by channels, the contact center you run, and your budget. Those three cut the field down fast.

• You want voice, chat, and email on one agent with shared context: Choose Computer, by DevRev.
• You need AI that acts inside your permissions and approvals: Choose Computer, by DevRev, which acts as the user within existing permissions, waits for approval before a sensitive step, and logs every action. Its Trust Center shows SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001:2022.
• You only need standalone voice: Choose Parloa, Cognigy, or Retell AI.
• You want voice alongside other digital channels in one product: Choose Kore.ai or Quiq.
• You run Genesys, Five9, or a similar contact center platform: Choose Cognigy, Parloa, Replicant, or Kore.ai.
• You want to build voice agents in code: Choose Retell AI or Bland.
• You want to replace a phone menu without changing the contact center: Choose Parloa.
• You want posted per-minute rates: Choose Retell AI or Bland.
• You want a voice-first platform and direct SIP handoff control: Stay on PolyAI.

Channel and budget narrow the choice, but one question settles it: should a caller’s history follow them from the call to chat and email? That question picks the platform.

Why is Computer, by DevRev, our pick?

Computer, by DevRev, is our pick when you want calls resolved from grounded answers, a transfer that carries a summary, and post-call review on one agent across voice, chat, and email, for four reasons you can check on DevRev’s own pages.

• It grounds answers in source records: DevRev says answers cite specific source records and permissions follow the source systems, and Computer Memory gives support, product, and engineering shared context. DevRev says Voice AI is a channel on Customer Agent, so there is no separate knowledge base to build for calls.
• It acts in your systems inside guardrails: Customer Agent checks logs in Datadog, pulls orders from Shopify, and replays sessions before it resolves, and sensitive actions pause for approval and are logged.
• It transfers with a summary: Customer Agent can summarize the conversation and escalate to a person, and Voice AI can transfer a call to a configured human destination. What the receiving agent sees depends on the telephony setup.
• It follows through after the call: DevRev says every call is logged, summarized, and recorded with consent, in up to 70 languages, and each week Computer brings a short set of fixes from handled conversations for the team to approve, edit, or skip.