- Who it's for
- Businesses thinking about using a free AI phone assistant.
- What you'll be able to do
- Know what a free assistant takes off your hands, and what you have to set up yourself before it saves you any work.
- As of
- October 2026
The minutes have become almost free; the work hasn't. You can now get an AI phone assistant at no charge: sipgate, a German telephony provider, gives away the basic version of its assistant with 500 minutes a month.1 What costs time and money happens before that: deciding what the assistant may say, when it hands over to a person, and how each request gets to the place where it is dealt with. A Bitkom survey on AI in companies generally points the same way: almost twice as many AI users there name integration as a major cost item as name the licence.2
An AI phone assistant is now available for free
You can now get an AI phone assistant for free. On 22 September 2026, sipgate presented “sona”, an AI phone agent for small and medium-sized businesses. The basic version is permanently free and includes 500 minutes a month.13
The provider's reasoning is worth noting: an agent like this should, in its words (translated from German), be “as much a matter of course as an answering machine used to be”.1 A first trial no longer has to fail on the price of the assistant. The question is no longer whether you can afford one, but whether it does anything useful for you.
What a free AI phone assistant takes on
According to sipgate, sona answers calls, can access customer databases (CRM, the programs that hold your contacts and cases) and hands calls over to staff together with their context. It is said to run on the company's own servers in Germany, with AI models it operates itself.1 These are the provider's statements; I have not checked them.
Which of these features are part of the free tier is set out in the plan terms — read them before you plan. The announcement does at least name the so-called MCP connections (an interface through which the assistant controls other programs) as a paid feature.1 For a first trial the free tier is still likely to be enough: you hear what an assistant sounds like on your line and how callers react to it.
Where the work begins: three things no plan includes
An assistant that picks up politely and says “I'll pass that on” is a better answering machine. It only saves work once it knows what it may say, and once whatever it takes down carries on without anyone retyping it. What follows is my assessment and recommendation, not a list from a study.
- 01What it may sayWhich questions does it answer itself, which with a fixed sentence, which not at all? Prices, appointments and commitments are the sensitive spots.
- 02When it hands overWhich requests need a person straight away, and for which is a call back enough? And who gets the handover when you aren't there yourself?
- 03Where the request ends upAn appointment belongs in the calendar, an enquiry in the inbox or in your industry software. As long as someone transfers the request by hand, you have only moved the work.
The first step deserves particular care. The Higher Regional Court of Hamm attributed the false statements of a company's chatbot to that company, under German unfair competition law.4 More on that in the post When your chatbot gets it wrong, you said it. The court did not rule on phone assistants. To be on the safe side, I would apply the same standard.
What AI really costs companies
Whether the cost sits in the connecting or in the licence can be read from figures. Bitkom, Germany's digital industry association, surveyed 603 companies with 20 or more employees and asked the AI users among them what counts as a major cost item for them.2
The licence is rarely the big item; connecting is, almost twice as often. Named even more often were infrastructure (51%) and data preparation (50%).2 Bitkom's release puts it this way (translated from German): “Anyone who only buys a licence has bought AI, but has not changed anything yet.”2
One caveat belongs here: the survey covers AI in companies generally, not just phone assistants, and it asks firms with 20 or more employees. It does not say whether the split looks the same in a small business. Among the companies not yet using AI, 63% name costs that are hard to calculate as an obstacle.2
Free plan or an assistant that has been set up?
A free plan is a good place to start trying things out. Whether it is enough depends on what should happen after the call.
Trying it out no longer costs anything; saving time costs preparation. If you only want to know whether callers are happy to talk to an AI, start with the free plan. If you want to save time, plan the three steps above from the start.
Before the assistant takes its first call
A few things belong before the start, free or paid. Callers should learn that an AI is on the line; what the AI Act requires on that is covered in the post on the labelling duty under Article 50. And as soon as the assistant accesses a calendar or customer data, the question is how far its permissions reach — see the post on four questions before an AI agent gets access.
- Plan terms read: which features and connections does your tier include?
- Decided which questions the assistant may answer and which it may not
- Called it yourself, asked the sensitive questions and listened to the answers
- Settled when it hands over and to whom
- Announcement built in that an AI is speaking
- Access to calendar and customer data only as far as the process needs it
If you are trying out or planning an AI phone assistant and want to know how the calls get to where you work: tell me how your calls run today. Then we'll look at which of the three steps make the work in your case.
Sources
- 1sipgate: Kostenloser KI-Telefonassistent sipgate sona (22 September 2026, in German) · retrieved 28 September 2026
- 2Bitkom: press release on the study “KI in der Wirtschaft” (14 September 2026, in German) · retrieved 28 September 2026
- 3mobiFlip: sipgate startet KI-Telefonagent sona (22 September 2026, in German) · retrieved 28 September 2026
- 4OLG Hamm, judgment of 12 May 2026, 4 UKl 3/25 (full text, NRWE, in German) · retrieved 23 September 2026