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Why Manufacturers Are Turning to AI Voice Agents in 2025
Why Manufacturers Are Turning to AI Voice Agents in 2025
Calin Drimbau
May 30, 2025
The technology behind voice agents has improved significantly over the past 12 months. With recent advancements in real-time AI, lower infrastructure costs, and higher user expectations for responsiveness, voice is becoming a serious option for companies that rely on frequent customer and partner communication.
This matters particularly in sectors like manufacturing and industrial sales, where quoting, coordination, and customer support still depend heavily on email, phone calls, and manual follow-up.
Broadn now offers a voice agent designed for exactly these workflows. It connects directly with your product data, quoting logic, and CRM systems to respond to customers, route requests, and create visibility into sales conversations that were previously lost or delayed.
This post breaks down what’s changed in the technology, why it matters now, and how it could impact your team.
A Shift in the Technology Landscape
Voice agents are not new, but the last year marked a turning point in both their performance and affordability. Several changes contributed to this shift:
1. Lower Costs:
In December 2024, OpenAI dropped the price of its GPT-4o real-time voice API by more than 80 percent. For the first time, running a voice agent continuously became financially viable for small and mid-sized businesses—not just large enterprises.
2. Better Models:
Voice interaction quality has improved, with agents now able to respond more naturally, handle diverse accents, and maintain multi-turn conversations without breaking context. This makes them useful for real-world tasks beyond simple call routing or scripted menu options.
3. Proven Enterprise Adoption:
Larger companies are starting to use voice agents in production. They typically begin with 5–10 percent of calls handled by AI and then increase coverage as confidence in the system grows. This slow rollout pattern provides a roadmap for others: you don’t need to automate everything at once, but you can start today.
What Problems Voice Can Solve
We speak with manufacturing leaders weekly. Most aren’t looking to implement flashy AI. They just want to stop missing RFQs, reduce their team’s admin burden, and respond to more customer requests without having to hire more staff.
A voice agent helps with exactly those problems. Here are a few specific use cases:
Missed Inbound Calls:
According to industry research, 62 percent of calls to SMBs are missed. Many of these are time-sensitive sales or support inquiries. A voice agent ensures that someone always picks up—whether it’s during business hours, lunch breaks, or after 5pm.
Quote Routing and Qualification:
If your quoting process relies on tribal knowledge or manual handoffs, you’re at risk of delays. A voice agent can ask qualifying questions, identify the right product line, and route requests to the appropriate salesperson or technical expert.
Customer Status Updates:
Simple inquiries like “Has my order shipped?” or “When will I get my quote?” take up valuable time. A voice agent integrated with your backend systems can answer these questions immediately, reducing the load on your team.
Lead Capture and CRM Sync:
Instead of scribbled notes or delayed email follow-ups, the voice agent can capture name, company, request type, and urgency—then automatically log that data to your CRM, ensuring it doesn't fall through the cracks.
How Broadn’s Voice Agent Works
Our voice agent is built specifically for industrial sales and manufacturing teams. It plugs into the same system you already use with Broadn for quoting, product catalogs, and customer communication.
Key features include:
Live product data access: It can reference your catalog and pricing logic in real time.
Workflow routing: It can route calls to human teammates for complex or high-priority situations.
CRM and ERP integration: It logs all call data to your systems automatically.
Custom call flows: You can configure different logic for different product lines, geographies, or customer types.
Language support: Handle calls in multiple languages for global operations.
You can start with narrow use cases, such as after-hours coverage or inbound RFQ triage, and expand from there.
Thinking Through Implementation
If you’re considering voice, it helps to think through a few practical questions:
Where do most of your calls come from? Sales, support, partners, or existing customers?
What types of questions are most repetitive or low-value? These are great candidates for voice automation.
Who on your team responds to inbound calls today? Are they capturing all requests? Are they logging them consistently?
What happens after a call is received? Is there a structured follow-up process, or is it manual and dependent on individuals?
Is your product and pricing data centralized and accessible to an agent?
You don’t need perfect systems to get started. Most teams start by covering after-hours calls or routing requests for a single product line. You can iterate from there as the system earns trust.
What Success Looks Like
The most successful voice agent implementations follow a few simple rules:
Start small and focused. Don’t try to cover every call scenario from day one.
Tie outcomes to metrics. Track response time, conversion rate, or call resolution.
Keep a human in the loop. The goal is not to eliminate humans but to free them up for more valuable work.
Make it part of your workflow. Voice data is only useful if it flows into your CRM, support system, or quoting tools.
Over time, you can measure impact through metrics like:
Number of calls answered after hours
Time to first response
Percentage of calls routed correctly
Cost per lead or support request
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
Looking Ahead
The introduction of Broadn’s voice agent is part of a broader shift in how manufacturing companies adopt AI. We’re moving beyond dashboards and spreadsheets to systems that actively participate in workflows. Voice is just one way to interact—but for many companies, it’s still the primary one.
If your team is spending time on phone-based requests that could be handled by automation, this is a good time to take a closer look. The technology is mature. The costs are manageable. And the upside is real.
We built Broadn’s voice agent to help teams like yours work faster and serve customers better—without adding headcount or overhauling your existing systems.
Want to see how it works in practice?
Book a demo and we’ll walk you through a real use case based on your workflow.
The technology behind voice agents has improved significantly over the past 12 months. With recent advancements in real-time AI, lower infrastructure costs, and higher user expectations for responsiveness, voice is becoming a serious option for companies that rely on frequent customer and partner communication.
This matters particularly in sectors like manufacturing and industrial sales, where quoting, coordination, and customer support still depend heavily on email, phone calls, and manual follow-up.
Broadn now offers a voice agent designed for exactly these workflows. It connects directly with your product data, quoting logic, and CRM systems to respond to customers, route requests, and create visibility into sales conversations that were previously lost or delayed.
This post breaks down what’s changed in the technology, why it matters now, and how it could impact your team.
A Shift in the Technology Landscape
Voice agents are not new, but the last year marked a turning point in both their performance and affordability. Several changes contributed to this shift:
1. Lower Costs:
In December 2024, OpenAI dropped the price of its GPT-4o real-time voice API by more than 80 percent. For the first time, running a voice agent continuously became financially viable for small and mid-sized businesses—not just large enterprises.
2. Better Models:
Voice interaction quality has improved, with agents now able to respond more naturally, handle diverse accents, and maintain multi-turn conversations without breaking context. This makes them useful for real-world tasks beyond simple call routing or scripted menu options.
3. Proven Enterprise Adoption:
Larger companies are starting to use voice agents in production. They typically begin with 5–10 percent of calls handled by AI and then increase coverage as confidence in the system grows. This slow rollout pattern provides a roadmap for others: you don’t need to automate everything at once, but you can start today.
What Problems Voice Can Solve
We speak with manufacturing leaders weekly. Most aren’t looking to implement flashy AI. They just want to stop missing RFQs, reduce their team’s admin burden, and respond to more customer requests without having to hire more staff.
A voice agent helps with exactly those problems. Here are a few specific use cases:
Missed Inbound Calls:
According to industry research, 62 percent of calls to SMBs are missed. Many of these are time-sensitive sales or support inquiries. A voice agent ensures that someone always picks up—whether it’s during business hours, lunch breaks, or after 5pm.
Quote Routing and Qualification:
If your quoting process relies on tribal knowledge or manual handoffs, you’re at risk of delays. A voice agent can ask qualifying questions, identify the right product line, and route requests to the appropriate salesperson or technical expert.
Customer Status Updates:
Simple inquiries like “Has my order shipped?” or “When will I get my quote?” take up valuable time. A voice agent integrated with your backend systems can answer these questions immediately, reducing the load on your team.
Lead Capture and CRM Sync:
Instead of scribbled notes or delayed email follow-ups, the voice agent can capture name, company, request type, and urgency—then automatically log that data to your CRM, ensuring it doesn't fall through the cracks.
How Broadn’s Voice Agent Works
Our voice agent is built specifically for industrial sales and manufacturing teams. It plugs into the same system you already use with Broadn for quoting, product catalogs, and customer communication.
Key features include:
Live product data access: It can reference your catalog and pricing logic in real time.
Workflow routing: It can route calls to human teammates for complex or high-priority situations.
CRM and ERP integration: It logs all call data to your systems automatically.
Custom call flows: You can configure different logic for different product lines, geographies, or customer types.
Language support: Handle calls in multiple languages for global operations.
You can start with narrow use cases, such as after-hours coverage or inbound RFQ triage, and expand from there.
Thinking Through Implementation
If you’re considering voice, it helps to think through a few practical questions:
Where do most of your calls come from? Sales, support, partners, or existing customers?
What types of questions are most repetitive or low-value? These are great candidates for voice automation.
Who on your team responds to inbound calls today? Are they capturing all requests? Are they logging them consistently?
What happens after a call is received? Is there a structured follow-up process, or is it manual and dependent on individuals?
Is your product and pricing data centralized and accessible to an agent?
You don’t need perfect systems to get started. Most teams start by covering after-hours calls or routing requests for a single product line. You can iterate from there as the system earns trust.
What Success Looks Like
The most successful voice agent implementations follow a few simple rules:
Start small and focused. Don’t try to cover every call scenario from day one.
Tie outcomes to metrics. Track response time, conversion rate, or call resolution.
Keep a human in the loop. The goal is not to eliminate humans but to free them up for more valuable work.
Make it part of your workflow. Voice data is only useful if it flows into your CRM, support system, or quoting tools.
Over time, you can measure impact through metrics like:
Number of calls answered after hours
Time to first response
Percentage of calls routed correctly
Cost per lead or support request
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
Looking Ahead
The introduction of Broadn’s voice agent is part of a broader shift in how manufacturing companies adopt AI. We’re moving beyond dashboards and spreadsheets to systems that actively participate in workflows. Voice is just one way to interact—but for many companies, it’s still the primary one.
If your team is spending time on phone-based requests that could be handled by automation, this is a good time to take a closer look. The technology is mature. The costs are manageable. And the upside is real.
We built Broadn’s voice agent to help teams like yours work faster and serve customers better—without adding headcount or overhauling your existing systems.
Want to see how it works in practice?
Book a demo and we’ll walk you through a real use case based on your workflow.
The technology behind voice agents has improved significantly over the past 12 months. With recent advancements in real-time AI, lower infrastructure costs, and higher user expectations for responsiveness, voice is becoming a serious option for companies that rely on frequent customer and partner communication.
This matters particularly in sectors like manufacturing and industrial sales, where quoting, coordination, and customer support still depend heavily on email, phone calls, and manual follow-up.
Broadn now offers a voice agent designed for exactly these workflows. It connects directly with your product data, quoting logic, and CRM systems to respond to customers, route requests, and create visibility into sales conversations that were previously lost or delayed.
This post breaks down what’s changed in the technology, why it matters now, and how it could impact your team.
A Shift in the Technology Landscape
Voice agents are not new, but the last year marked a turning point in both their performance and affordability. Several changes contributed to this shift:
1. Lower Costs:
In December 2024, OpenAI dropped the price of its GPT-4o real-time voice API by more than 80 percent. For the first time, running a voice agent continuously became financially viable for small and mid-sized businesses—not just large enterprises.
2. Better Models:
Voice interaction quality has improved, with agents now able to respond more naturally, handle diverse accents, and maintain multi-turn conversations without breaking context. This makes them useful for real-world tasks beyond simple call routing or scripted menu options.
3. Proven Enterprise Adoption:
Larger companies are starting to use voice agents in production. They typically begin with 5–10 percent of calls handled by AI and then increase coverage as confidence in the system grows. This slow rollout pattern provides a roadmap for others: you don’t need to automate everything at once, but you can start today.
What Problems Voice Can Solve
We speak with manufacturing leaders weekly. Most aren’t looking to implement flashy AI. They just want to stop missing RFQs, reduce their team’s admin burden, and respond to more customer requests without having to hire more staff.
A voice agent helps with exactly those problems. Here are a few specific use cases:
Missed Inbound Calls:
According to industry research, 62 percent of calls to SMBs are missed. Many of these are time-sensitive sales or support inquiries. A voice agent ensures that someone always picks up—whether it’s during business hours, lunch breaks, or after 5pm.
Quote Routing and Qualification:
If your quoting process relies on tribal knowledge or manual handoffs, you’re at risk of delays. A voice agent can ask qualifying questions, identify the right product line, and route requests to the appropriate salesperson or technical expert.
Customer Status Updates:
Simple inquiries like “Has my order shipped?” or “When will I get my quote?” take up valuable time. A voice agent integrated with your backend systems can answer these questions immediately, reducing the load on your team.
Lead Capture and CRM Sync:
Instead of scribbled notes or delayed email follow-ups, the voice agent can capture name, company, request type, and urgency—then automatically log that data to your CRM, ensuring it doesn't fall through the cracks.
How Broadn’s Voice Agent Works
Our voice agent is built specifically for industrial sales and manufacturing teams. It plugs into the same system you already use with Broadn for quoting, product catalogs, and customer communication.
Key features include:
Live product data access: It can reference your catalog and pricing logic in real time.
Workflow routing: It can route calls to human teammates for complex or high-priority situations.
CRM and ERP integration: It logs all call data to your systems automatically.
Custom call flows: You can configure different logic for different product lines, geographies, or customer types.
Language support: Handle calls in multiple languages for global operations.
You can start with narrow use cases, such as after-hours coverage or inbound RFQ triage, and expand from there.
Thinking Through Implementation
If you’re considering voice, it helps to think through a few practical questions:
Where do most of your calls come from? Sales, support, partners, or existing customers?
What types of questions are most repetitive or low-value? These are great candidates for voice automation.
Who on your team responds to inbound calls today? Are they capturing all requests? Are they logging them consistently?
What happens after a call is received? Is there a structured follow-up process, or is it manual and dependent on individuals?
Is your product and pricing data centralized and accessible to an agent?
You don’t need perfect systems to get started. Most teams start by covering after-hours calls or routing requests for a single product line. You can iterate from there as the system earns trust.
What Success Looks Like
The most successful voice agent implementations follow a few simple rules:
Start small and focused. Don’t try to cover every call scenario from day one.
Tie outcomes to metrics. Track response time, conversion rate, or call resolution.
Keep a human in the loop. The goal is not to eliminate humans but to free them up for more valuable work.
Make it part of your workflow. Voice data is only useful if it flows into your CRM, support system, or quoting tools.
Over time, you can measure impact through metrics like:
Number of calls answered after hours
Time to first response
Percentage of calls routed correctly
Cost per lead or support request
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
Looking Ahead
The introduction of Broadn’s voice agent is part of a broader shift in how manufacturing companies adopt AI. We’re moving beyond dashboards and spreadsheets to systems that actively participate in workflows. Voice is just one way to interact—but for many companies, it’s still the primary one.
If your team is spending time on phone-based requests that could be handled by automation, this is a good time to take a closer look. The technology is mature. The costs are manageable. And the upside is real.
We built Broadn’s voice agent to help teams like yours work faster and serve customers better—without adding headcount or overhauling your existing systems.
Want to see how it works in practice?
Book a demo and we’ll walk you through a real use case based on your workflow.
