Overview
Retell AI builds AI voice agents that answer and make phone calls for businesses, covering support, scheduling, sales, and payment calls once handled by human agents. Its agents take calls for companies such as CVS Health, Lenovo, Grab, and the San Antonio Spurs, in fields from healthcare to insurance and finance. Businesses build an agent in a drag-and-drop editor or with code, pick the AI model and voice behind it, connect it to phone lines and tools such as calendars, and test it on simulated calls before going live. Customers pay for each minute their agents spend on the phone. Retell AI was founded in 2023, went through the Y Combinator startup program, and is based in Redwood City, California.
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Sales doubled in ten months: Retell says its yearly revenue pace hit $80 million by September 2026, from $40 million.
- Room to grow: Retell listed 27 open roles in October 2026, paying senior engineers $200,000 to $300,000 plus equity.
- Jobs don't hinge on fundraising: Retell says it was profitable by November 2025 after one $4.6 million seed round.
What critics are saying
- A better-funded rival is scaling: customer-service AI firm Parloa raised $350 million in January 2026 and aims for 600 staff.
- One voice supplier competes with it: ElevenLabs' agents handled 15 million conversations a week by September 2026, triple February's pace.
- Expect a heavy, in-person load: about 50 employees serve thousands of business customers, mostly from a Redwood City office.
What makes Retell AI unique
- Its call data doubles as a yardstick: Retell's August 2026 test ranked 27 AI models on real contact-center calls.
- Five co-founders run it together: four came from TikTok's parent ByteDance, Google or Meta.
- Its call volume is large for a startup: its agents handled over 55 million calls a month by June 2026.
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