AI Can Now Answer Your Phone. Meet the ¥800/Month AI Receptionist

Have you ever wished AI could just pick up the phone for you?

A call comes in during a meeting. You tell yourself you’ll call back later — and then forget who it even was. If you run a business, that scenario is all too familiar.

As it turns out, that problem is now solvable for about ¥800 a month.

AI Answers Calls in Your Place

This system automatically intercepts calls to your business phone number and has a real conversation with the caller.

Here’s how the flow works:

A customer calls your business number
The call is automatically forwarded to the AI
The AI answers in a natural, friendly voice
It asks for the caller’s name, the reason for calling, and a callback number
After the call ends, the AI summarizes the conversation and sends it to you by email

The email you receive looks something like this:

📞 Incoming Call Summary
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Caller number: 090-xxxx-xxxx
Name: Taro Yamada
Company: ABC Co., Ltd.
Purpose: Would like to discuss scheduling a meeting next week
Callback number: 090-xxxx-xxxx
Urgency: Low
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When your meeting ends, you check your email and call back whoever needs it. No more “Wait — who called me earlier?”

What’s Running Under the Hood

For those curious about the technology: this system connects several cloud services that work together seamlessly.

Role	Service	What It Does
Phone line	Twilio	Receives and routes incoming calls
AI brain	Claude (Anthropic)	Understands the conversation and generates responses
Voice	Google Cloud TTS	Converts text to natural-sounding speech
Notifications	Resend	Emails the conversation summary
Server	Vercel	Runs the whole system

The moment a call comes in, these services kick in together. The AI has the conversation, and by the time the call ends, a formatted summary is already on its way to your inbox — all within seconds.

Why Does It Only Cost ¥800/Month?

Existing phone answering services (such as Ivry) typically run ¥5,000/month or more. This setup delivers comparable functionality for around ¥800/month.

Item	Cost
Phone number (Twilio 050)	~¥700
Call charges	~¥75 (for ~20 min/month)
AI usage (Claude)	~¥15
Voice, email, server	Free tiers
Total	~¥800/month

Here’s our actual Twilio bill for March 2026. One phone number: ¥700. Seventeen minutes of calls: ¥26. Total for the month: ¥774.

Twilio billing — March 2026

The AI cost of just ¥15 might seem surprisingly low — but phone conversations are short bursts of text, so the processing cost stays minimal.

Who Is This For?

Solo founders or freelancers who frequently can’t answer calls
Small offices without a dedicated receptionist
Anyone who’s ever forgotten to note down who called
Businesses looking to cut the cost of existing phone answering services

That said, AI does have limits. For complex inquiries or situations requiring emotional sensitivity, a human touch is still essential. This system is purpose-built for call intake and logging — not full-service support.

How AI Is Changing the Way We Work

Answering and routing calls has always been a human job — until now. Today, AI can hold a natural conversation in Japanese (or English), understand the caller’s intent, and deliver a structured summary, all without human intervention.

“I’m scared I’ll miss an important call.” “I can’t leave the office because someone has to answer the phone.” These are real constraints that technology can now remove.

At ¥800 a month — roughly the price of a cup of coffee — it’s worth exploring whether an AI receptionist could take some of that pressure off your plate.

We Can Help You Get Set Up

If you’re interested in setting up an AI phone receptionist for your business, or want advice on which services to use, we’re here to help.

From initial configuration to day-to-day operations, feel free to get in touch. Let’s find the right AI solution for your business.