Do I have to disclose an AI receptionist?

Telling callers it's AI takes one line at the start of the call. "Thanks for calling Harbor Dental, you've reached the practice's AI assistant" is the kind of notice both live state rules describe. You write that line once in GreetKeeper's disclosure setting, and it plays on every call.

Direction matters more than the technology. GreetKeeper answers calls that come to you. The TCPA and the FCC's February 2024 ruling on artificial voices govern calls that go out. Most of the alarming material you'll read never reaches your front desk.

Maine's rule is the broad one. It sits in consumer-protection law, applies to any trade or commerce, and covers textual or aural AI. A lawn care company in Bangor is inside it just as much as a clinic is.

California comes up in almost every vendor post on this question, usually wrongly. SB 1001, the B.O.T. Act, is about bots that are automated online accounts on a website, web app or digital app. A phone line answering your inbound calls isn't one of those.

AB 2905 is the second misquote. It covers automatic dialing-announcing devices, which means calls a machine places. Your receptionist line takes calls rather than placing them, so a blog applying AB 2905 to it has the direction backwards.

Utah's act, as amended by SB 226, took effect on May 7 2025. Ordinary consumer businesses must disclose when a person asks. Regulated occupations must disclose prominently and out loud at the start of the call.

Two federal claims are stale too. The FCC's one-to-one consent rule was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit on January 24 2025, in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC. The FCC's September 2024 proposal on AI disclosure is still a proposal. Texas and Colorado are moving, so read their current text before you rely on any summary.

Take an accounting firm in Salt Lake City. Accounting is one of the state-licensed occupations Utah's AI Policy Act names, so the firm has to disclose prominently and verbally at the start. A greeting that does the job: "Thanks for calling Wasatch Tax. I'm the firm's AI assistant. Are you calling about a return we're preparing, or something new?" The notice comes before the first question, and that ordering is the point.

Now a lawn care company in Portland, Maine. It isn't a licensed profession, but Maine's Title 10 §1500-DD covers any trade or commerce and any spoken AI conversation. The company needs a clear and conspicuous notice too, and the same style of opening line handles it.

Third, a bakery in Ohio. As of September 2026 there's no general inbound disclosure requirement that reaches it. The bakery could skip the notice. We'd still switch it on, because callers who know they're talking to an assistant give cleaner details, and because the rules are moving in one direction.

Start with where your callers are and what you do for them. A Utah dentist and a Utah florist sit under the same act with different duties: the florist must disclose when a consumer asks, while the dentist must say it up front without being asked.

Test the asked-directly case on a demo. Ring in and say, "Is this a real person?" The answer should be an immediate yes-it's-an-AI, in words you wrote, with no dodging.

Listen to your greeting with a stopwatch as well. If the notice lands after a 20-second welcome message and two questions, it's hard to call that the start. Put it in the first or second sentence.

Two cautions about what you'll read elsewhere. California AB 2905 covers outbound automated calls and doesn't govern a line that answers your phone, whatever a vendor blog says. Texas and Colorado are both in motion, so check the current text or ask your lawyer before relying on any summary, including this one. We aren't giving legal advice here.

GreetKeeper's disclosure setting puts your notice in the first line of every call. You write the words, so a law firm can say "the firm's AI assistant" and a plumber can say "our automated receptionist".

Train GreetKeeper on the question "am I talking to a real person?" and it answers plainly, in the words you approved. That is exactly the moment Utah's on-request rule is about for ordinary businesses.

For a dental practice or an accounting firm, build around Utah: the notice goes first, spoken, before any question. The setting is on every plan from $49 a month, and every plan starts with a 14-day free trial.