Overview
How AI Setup works
AI Setup uses an accordion layout with sections for each aspect of your AI configuration. Changes are saved as a draft until you explicitly Publish — this means you can make updates safely without affecting your live AI until you're ready.
Draft vs Published Your live AI uses the last published configuration. Unsaved edits show a "Changes not saved" indicator. Published changes take effect within seconds.
Knowledge Base is a separate page Uploading documents, URLs, and text to your AI's knowledge is managed on the dedicated Knowledge Base page — accessible from the sidebar. It is not part of AI Setup.
Chat-only accounts If your plan doesn't include Nexwin AI Receptionist (phone calls), the phone number badge and Provision Number button in the page header are hidden — there's no number to provision. Voice-only sections (Personality & Accent, Call Forwarding, OTP Verification) are hidden too; the handbook section is relabelled "How to Handle Website Visitors."
Section 1
Business Essentials
The foundational information your AI uses to introduce itself and answer basic questions. This section has three collapsible sub-sections.
Sub-section 1 — About Your Business/Service
| Field | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Website URL | Your business website. Use the Analyse Website button to automatically extract and prefill fields below. | Optional |
| Business name | The name your AI uses when greeting callers. E.g. "Hello, you've reached Nexwin Technologies." | Required |
| Business type | Select your industry (e.g. Dental Clinic, Law Firm, Hair Salon). Determines the default handbook template and booking terminology. | Optional |
| About your business | A short description (up to 500 characters) of what your business does. Included in the AI's core knowledge. | Required |
| Business address | Your primary physical location, used when customers ask for directions or your address. | Optional |
Analyse Website Enter your website URL then click Analyse Website. The AI will crawl your site, extract business details, hours, services, and appointment types, and prefill all fields automatically. A page-selection modal lets you pick which pages to add to your Knowledge Base. Review and edit all prefilled values before saving.
Sub-section 2 — Appointment Scheduling
Control whether the AI books appointments and what kinds it offers. Use the toggle to enable or disable appointment scheduling entirely.
| Setting / Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable Appointment Scheduling | Toggle on to let the AI book, reschedule, and cancel appointments. Toggle off if the agent handles other tasks like order-taking or general support. On hotel, accommodation and rental accounts this is labelled Enable Bookings and controls asset bookings instead. |
| Default Duration | The default booking length suggested to customers (15 min – 4 hours). Auto-set from your business type but fully adjustable. |
| Online | Virtual appointments via video call. A Zoom meeting link is automatically generated and sent after booking (requires Zoom Connect). |
| Customers visit us | Customers come to your location. The AI confirms your address and directs them to you. |
| We visit the customer | Your team travels to the customer. The AI asks the caller for their address when booking. Enabling this reveals the Service Area selector below. |
Hotel, accommodation and rental accounts book assets instead Setting the Business Type to one of these switches the account to bookable assets — rooms, sites, vehicles, equipment — and adds a My Assets page to the sidebar. Staff appointment scheduling is switched off for these business types, so the duration and meeting-type options above do not apply; the asset's own check-in and check-out times are used instead.
Service Area (when "We visit the customer" is on)
Define where your team can travel to. The AI uses this to decide whether a caller's address is in your service area before booking, and to apply your out-of-area policy (e.g. flag for review, decline).
| Mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| All Australia | You service the entire country. No further selection needed. |
| States | Select one or more Australian states or territories (e.g. NSW, VIC, QLD). |
| Suburbs | Pick individual suburbs by name, or import them in bulk by postcode (see below). |
| From knowledge base | Service area is defined in your Knowledge Base file. The AI checks the caller's suburb or postcode against the KB content directly. Use this when you have a large or complex coverage list already documented in your KB. |
- Search by suburb name Type a suburb to see matches. Click to add it to your service area; selected suburbs appear on the map.
- Search by postcode Type a 4-digit postcode (e.g. 2000) to list all suburbs in that postcode area. Add them individually or all at once.
- Bulk import by postcode Paste or type a list of postcodes (comma- or space-separated, or one per line). The AI imports every suburb that falls inside any of those postcodes in one click. Anything that isn't a 4-digit postcode is ignored.
- Out-of-area policy Choose what the AI does when a caller's address is outside your service area: flag the booking for review, or politely decline and offer alternatives.
- Clear all selections A confirmation prompt appears before clearing — to prevent accidental loss of large suburb lists.
Tip — postcode bulk import Have a list of postcodes you service from your old call sheet or website? Paste them straight into the bulk import box. Postcodes are matched against the Australian Bureau of Statistics boundary data so the suburb list is always accurate.
Sub-section 3 — Business Hours
Define when your AI receptionist is active. Outside these hours, the AI can inform callers and take messages rather than booking appointments.
- Select your timezone (defaults to your account region). This applies to the whole account's business hours schedule.
- Enable Same hours for all weekdays to set Mon–Fri hours in one step, or set each day individually.
- Toggle Open on weekends to include Saturday and Sunday.
- Set start and end times per day (e.g. Monday 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM).
Per-member timezone Individual team members can have their own timezone set independently. This overrides the account timezone when the AI checks that member's availability for appointments. Manage this in My Team → Edit Settings.
Section 2
How to Handle Calls
Write a handbook for your AI receptionist — like instructions you'd give a new hire on their first day. This is free-form text describing how to handle specific situations your business encounters.
- Click the handbook preview card to open the full-screen rich text editor. Use headings, bullet points, bold, and dividers to organise your instructions.
- Use the suggestion chips at the top of the editor to quickly add pre-written sections tailored to your industry (e.g. "New patient intake", "Price enquiries", "After-hours protocol").
- Maximum 3,000 characters. A character counter is shown in the editor footer.
- Greeting, caller name confirmation, appointment booking/rescheduling/cancellation, message taking, and call closing are handled automatically — you do not need to write instructions for those.
Business type drives the template When you select a Business Type in Business Essentials and this field is empty, a starter handbook is automatically generated for your industry. You can edit or replace it at any time.
Section 3
Personality & Accent
Define how your AI introduces itself, how it communicates, and what voice it uses. This section has three collapsible sub-sections.
Sub-section 1 — Assistant Identity
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Assistant Name | The name the AI uses to introduce itself (e.g. "Sarah", "Nexwin AI"). Shown to callers and chat visitors. |
| Personality traits | Choose traits like Friendly, Professional, Concise, Empathetic, Proactive, Welcoming, Efficient, or Caring. These shape the AI's language and tone throughout calls. |
| Boosted Keywords | Comma-separated list of words the AI should recognise accurately — product names, brand terms, industry jargon. Improves speech recognition for these specific terms. |
| Pronunciation Guide | Teach the AI how to pronounce specific words. Enter the word, how it should be said (plain English), and optionally an IPA phonetic. Useful for brand names or uncommon terms. |
Sub-section 2 — Conversation Style
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Response Length | Concise (1–2 sentences), Moderate (2–3 sentences), or Detailed (longer with explanations). Controls how much the AI says in each turn. |
| Maximum Questions Per Response | 1 (recommended for natural flow) or 2 (for efficiency). How many questions the AI may ask in a single response. |
| Use caller's name | When enabled, the AI addresses the caller by name once it has been provided. |
| Ask follow-up questions | The AI asks for clarification when a caller's answer is unclear or incomplete. |
| Avoid repetition | The AI varies its phrasing rather than repeating the same sentences. |
| Inform callers calls are recorded | The AI states "This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes" at the start of each call. If a caller objects, it offers a callback. Applies to voice calls only, not chat. |
Recording disclosure is on by default Under Australian law, callers should be informed when a call is recorded. Disabling this setting means you accept responsibility for compliance with local recording and privacy laws.
Sub-section 3 — Voice & Accent
Choose the voice your AI speaks in and fine-tune its delivery. The Voice & Accent section opens its own accordion within Personality & Accent.
Voice Personality (Persona)
Three persona cards are shown at the top. Selecting a persona sets a matching voice style profile automatically — you can still customise individual settings below.
| Persona | Character |
|---|---|
| Professional | Formal, clear, detailed. Suited to law firms, accountants, and corporate services. |
| Quick | Fast, direct, efficient. Suited to high-volume trade and service businesses. |
| Warm | Friendly, empathetic, energetic. Suited to health, wellness, and hospitality businesses. Recommended |
Voice Selection
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Accent | Filter available voices by accent (e.g. Australian, American, British). Australian is recommended for local businesses. |
| Voice | Choose a specific AI voice within the selected accent. Click Play Preview to hear a sample before committing. |
| Voice Model | Faster — high quality, multilingual, accent-stable (recommended for custom voices). Modern — emotional and expressive (recommended for designed voices). |
| Max Call Duration | The maximum length of any single call: 15, 20, or 30 minutes. Calls end gracefully when the limit is reached. |
Advanced Settings
Expand the Advanced Settings section for fine-grained control. These are grouped into three sub-sections:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| LLM Configuration | |
| LLM Model | The AI model powering your assistant's responses (Claude is recommended). |
| Response Creativity | 0–1 scale. Higher values produce more varied responses; lower values keep responses consistent and predictable. |
| Who Speaks First | Agent — AI greets the caller immediately. User — AI waits for the caller to speak first. |
| Allow AI to end calls | When enabled, the AI can decide to end a call (e.g. after completing a task or long silence). |
| Allow AI to transfer calls | Enables the AI to initiate a call transfer. Also requires Call Forwarding to be configured. |
| Voice Settings | |
| Voice Expressiveness | 0–2 scale. Higher values make the voice more emotionally expressive. |
| Voice Speed | 0.5–2 scale. 1.0 is natural speed. Increase for faster delivery, decrease for slower, clearer speech. |
| Responsiveness | How quickly the AI responds after the caller stops talking (0–1 scale). |
| Interruption Sensitivity | How easily the caller can interrupt the AI mid-sentence (0–1 scale). |
| Enable backchannel | Natural acknowledgement phrases (e.g. "uh-huh", "I see") to show the AI is listening. |
| Backchannel Frequency | How often those acknowledgements are inserted (0–1 scale). Only shown when backchannel is enabled. 0.3–0.5 is recommended — higher values talk over short caller replies and interfere with turn-taking. |
| Ambient Sound | Background ambience mixed into the AI's own audio for realism (call centre, coffee shop, convention hall, outdoor, static noise) or None. It does not affect what the caller's microphone picks up. |
| Ambient Sound Volume | How loud the ambience sits under the AI's voice (0–1 scale). Only shown when an ambient sound is selected. Keep at or below 0.2 so it stays subtle. |
| End Call After Silence | Seconds of caller silence before the AI ends the call (10 s, 20 s, 30 s, or 1 minute). |
| Conversation Style | |
| Questions per response | 1 (recommended) or 2. How many questions the AI may ask in a single response. |
| Response length | Concise, Moderate, or Detailed. Controls how much the AI says in each turn. |
| Use caller's name | The AI addresses the caller by name once it has been provided. |
| Ask follow-up questions | The AI asks for clarification when a caller's answer is unclear or incomplete. |
| Avoid repetition | The AI varies its phrasing rather than repeating the same sentences. |
| Recording disclosure | The AI states "This call may be recorded" at the start of each call. On by default — disabling it means you accept responsibility for local recording and privacy compliance. |
Section 4 — Voice only
Call Forwarding
Configure whether and how the AI transfers calls to a human when it cannot resolve a situation on its own. This section is only shown for voice (Nexwin AI Receptionist) accounts — chat-only accounts skip it.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable call forwarding | Toggle on to allow the AI to transfer calls to a human when specific conditions are met. |
| How should calls be transferred? | Pick a routing mode: Route all calls to one number (single mode) or Route calls by department (department mode — Advanced). |
| Outside Business Hours Action | What happens when someone calls after hours and needs a human: take a message, schedule a callback, or direct to voicemail. |
| Transfer Type | Warm Transfer (recommended) — AI stays on the line, detects if a human answered, then gives a brief handoff summary before stepping away. Cold Transfer — call is sent to your number immediately with no AI involvement. |
| Talk while waiting | Warm transfers only. The AI says a holding message to the caller while your phone rings, so there is no dead air. The message text is editable. |
| Transfer conditions | Select which situations trigger a transfer: customer requests a human, anger or frustration, pricing queries, complex matters, specific staff requests, urgent situations, or technical issues. You can also add custom conditions. |
Mode 1 — Route all calls to one number
Every escalation goes to the same Australian phone number. Ideal for small teams or single-person businesses. Enter one Call Forwarding Number (accepts 04XX XXX XXX, +614XXXXXXXX, or 4XXXXXXXX format).
Mode 2 — Route calls by department ADVANCED
Define routing rules so the AI directs each escalated call to the right department based on what the caller is asking about. Useful when billing should go to accounts, sales enquiries to sales, technical issues to support, and so on.
- Add up to 10 routing rules. Each rule has a Department name, a Phone number, and a Routing condition (e.g. "asks about billing, invoices, or payments").
- The AI reads the caller's enquiry and chooses the matching rule. Rules can be edited or removed inline.
- If no rule matches, the call goes to the fallback number you configure for unmatched escalations.
At least one condition required If call forwarding is enabled, you must select at least one transfer condition before publishing. In department mode, you must also add at least one routing rule.
Section 5
Notifications
Get notified on the Nexwin AI iOS or Android app after every call or website chat — so you always know what your AI handled, even when you're on the tools. App push notifications are the primary channel; SMS is a legacy option kept only for accounts that already had numbers configured.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Notify me after every call and chat | Master toggle for push notifications. Covers both phone calls and website chat sessions. |
| SMS numbers | Only shown if your account already has mobile numbers configured from before the app existed. Up to 5 Australian mobile numbers, each receiving the same SMS as the push notification. Remove them to switch fully to app notifications. |
| Notify me for — Every call and chat | See everything the AI handled, including routine ones. |
| Notify me for — Only when I need to act | Only ping when something needs your attention. Reveals a checklist of conditions below. |
| What counts as needing your attention | Six preset conditions, all ticked by default: customer wants a callback; AI couldn't help and a team member needs to follow up; customer asked something the AI couldn't answer; a booking was made, rescheduled, or cancelled; customer left an urgent message; customer asked for a quote or pricing. Untick any you don't need, or add your own free-text condition. |
Don't have the app yet? If your account isn't linked to an installed Nexwin AI app, a banner with iOS/Android download badges appears above the toggle. Push notifications include the caller's name, contact details, and a link to the full conversation.
Section 6 — Pro (when appointments enabled)
OTP Verification
Send a one-time passcode via SMS or email to verify the caller's identity before completing sensitive actions like cancellations or changes.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| SMS verification | Send a 6-digit code to the caller's mobile before confirming a sensitive action. Requires the caller to read the code back. |
| Email verification | Send a verification code to the caller's email address instead of (or in addition to) SMS. |
Pro feature OTP Verification is only available on active paid subscriptions. The section is visible but locked on free trials and inactive accounts.
Section 7 (always visible)
Chat Settings
Configure the embeddable Nexwin AI Chatbot widget for your website. When set up, visitors can chat with your AI directly on your site.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Agent icon | The icon shown in the chat bubble launcher (PNG/JPG/WebP, max 128×128px, max 50KB). Falls back to the default Nexwin icon. |
| Widget colour | The colour of the chat bubble and header bar (hex colour picker). |
| Position | Bottom-right or bottom-left of the page. |
| Widget title | The heading shown in the chat window. |
| Widget subtitle | A short tagline shown below the title (e.g. "We reply instantly"). |
| Welcome message | The greeting shown when a visitor first opens the chat (e.g. "Hi! How can I help you today?"). It is a static opener — the visitor replies straight to it with their question, and the AI answers that directly rather than greeting again. Keep it short and inviting. If left blank, a personalised default is generated from the assistant name and business name. |
| Allowed domains | Comma-separated list of domains allowed to embed the widget. Restricts unauthorised use. |
Get the embed snippet After publishing, your embed code snippet is shown in the AI Setup page. Copy and paste the
<script> tag into the </body> of your website.Saving & Publishing
Going live with your configuration
Changes in AI Setup are held as drafts until you publish. A sticky action bar at the bottom of the page shows your current status and publish button.
1
Make your changes
Edit any section. The status pill at the top shows "Changes made" when you have unsaved edits.
2
Save as draft (optional)
Click Save Draft to preserve your changes without going live. You can continue editing and save multiple times.
3
Save & Go Live
When ready, click Save & Go Live. A confirmation dialog appears — confirm to push the configuration to your live AI immediately.
4
The Knowledge Base finishes in the background
If you changed your Knowledge Base, Go Live does not wait for it. Your agent publishes straight away, then a toast reads "Updating your knowledge base in the background…" while the rebuild runs.
You can leave the page during a Knowledge Base rebuild Indexing a large site takes Retell several minutes, so the rebuild is deliberately decoupled from publishing. Your live agent is relinked to the finished Knowledge Base by the server, not the browser — so it ends up correct even if you close the tab. You'll see "Knowledge base updated — your agent is using it now" if the page is still open when it lands. If the rebuild fails, the toast tells you your agent is live but the Knowledge Base didn't finish; rebuild it from the Knowledge Base page.
Publishing is immediate Once published, the new configuration applies to the next call or chat session. Test major changes during off-hours if your business receives constant call volume.
Version History
Reviewing and restoring previous versions
Every time you publish a configuration, a snapshot is saved automatically. You can view past configurations and restore them if needed.
- Click Version History in the action bar to open the history drawer.
- Each version shows its publish date and a preview of the configuration.
- Click Restore on any past version to load it as your current draft, then publish it to go live.