Glossary
Voicebot and IVR
An IVR guides callers through a fixed menu using keys or keywords, whereas a voicebot understands freely spoken sentences and responds to them.
Also: voice bot, interactive voice response, phone menu, keypad menu
IVR stands for interactive voice response. Most people know it as the announcement “Press 1 for sales”. The paths are laid down in advance; anyone who does not fit the menu ends up on hold or with the wrong team. IVR systems are robust and inexpensive, but rigid.
A voicebot works with speech recognition and a language model. Callers say in their own words what they need, and the bot asks follow-up questions. Older voicebots only recognised requests that had been defined beforehand; current systems based on large language models hold more open conversations. The two approaches can be combined: a short menu separates the languages, then the voicebot takes over. When choosing, the name matters less than the question of how the system copes with unexpected sentences.
Related terms: Spoken dialogue system · Intent recognition · AI phone assistant · Barge-in
As of: 6 October 2026