Voice Agent Specialists

Quick Reference Keywords: Specialist agent · Handoff agent · Expert agent · No phone number · Voice Agents 3.0

Voice Agents 3.0: Specialist agents are only available once your account is on Voice Agents 3.0 (v3). If you don't see "Specialist" as an option when creating an agent, your account isn't on v3 yet.

Overview

A Specialist is a voice agent built to handle one focused area of a conversation. Specialists don't take calls directly - they have no phone number and are never dialed. Instead, another agent hands off the live call to a specialist when the conversation calls for it.

Think of a specialist as an expert you bring into the room: your main agent greets the caller and handles general questions, then pulls in the right specialist for billing, warranty, scheduling, a specific product line, etc.

Why Use Specialists

• Sharper instructions. Instead of one enormous prompt that tries to cover everything, each specialist has a tight, focused prompt for its area. Focused prompts produce better, more reliable conversations.
• Reusable expertise. Several agents can hand off to the same specialist.
• Cleaner routing. Your main agent decides when to bring in a specialist; the specialist handles the how.

How Specialists Fit With Handoffs

Specialists are the natural destination for an agent-to-agent handoff. When an agent hands off to a specialist:

• The call never leaves the system (no phone transfer, no ringing)
• The specialist picks up with the full conversation history
• The specialist continues in its own voice, with its own instructions and tools

For how to configure and trigger handoffs, see Transfers & Handoffs.

Creating a Specialist

1. Go to AI Agents > AI Voice Agents and click New Voice Agent
2. Set Agent Type to Specialist (handoff only)
3. Give it a focused internal name (e.g., "Billing Specialist")
4. Write Instructions scoped to its job, including the conversational name it should use with callers
5. Add any tools it needs (booking, knowledge base, conditional tools, etc.)
6. Choose a voice (the specialist speaks in its own voice after a handoff)
7. Save

Notes:

• Specialists have no phone number and never appear as an inbound/outbound default.
• A specialist has no first greeting requirement for phone calls - it begins speaking when it receives the handoff. (It still uses the standard default greeting/closing messages internally; you don't need to change them.)

Connecting a Specialist to a Main Agent

A specialist does nothing until another agent is configured to hand off to it:

1. Open the agent that should route to the specialist (e.g., your inbound default)
2. Go to the Transfers & Handoffs tab
3. Enable Handoffs and add the specialist as a handoff destination (Agent + Label + when-to-hand-off Description)
4. In that agent's Instructions, describe when to hand off to the specialist
5. Save

You can also let Ava ("Edit with AI") wire up the handoff for you.

Testing a Specialist

Because specialists have no phone number, you can't reach them with a real phone test. Use the Web Test instead:

1. On the specialist's card, click Test
2. The dialog opens on the Web Test tab - have a full conversation in your browser with live transcript and tool visibility

If you switch to the Phone Test tab for a specialist, you'll see a note explaining that specialists are reached only via handoffs and pointing you back to the Web Test. See Testing Voice Agents.

To test the handoff itself end-to-end (main agent → specialist), test the main agent in the browser and steer the conversation toward the specialist's topic; the web test performs a real handoff.

Best Practices

• Keep each specialist narrow. One clear job per specialist beats one that does many things.
• Give the main agent crisp routing rules. The main agent decides when to hand off, so be explicit ("for billing or invoice questions, hand off to the Billing specialist").
• Match voices intentionally. A handoff is smoother when the voice change feels like "bringing in a colleague." A short handoff message ("Let me bring in our billing specialist") helps.
• Test the whole path, not just the specialist in isolation - confirm the main agent actually triggers the handoff.

Troubleshooting

Problem: I don't see "Specialist" as an agent type

• Your account isn't on Voice Agents 3.0 yet. Specialists are a v3 feature.

Problem: My specialist never gets calls

• Specialists are never dialed directly. Make sure another agent has Handoffs enabled with this specialist as a destination, and that its instructions describe when to hand off.

Problem: The main agent isn't handing off to the specialist

• Make the handoff destination's description and the agent's instructions more explicit about when to hand off.
• Review the call's Call Sequence to see the agent's reasoning.

Related Features

• Transfers & Handoffs - Configure and trigger handoffs
• Testing Voice Agents - Test specialists in the browser
• AI Voice Agents Overview - Main voice agent guide