Customers and businesses alike are already experiencing the transformative potential of AI voice agents. From streamlined customer support conversations to personalized service at scale, an AI voice platform can radically improve customer satisfaction and foster long-term company growth.
But, when looking for the best AI voice platform, you have several options to choose from. Two major players in this space are Bland and Vapi. In this article, we’ll provide a comprehensive overview of Vapi and Bland, exploring each AI voice platform and determining which is best for enterprises.
What Is Vapi AI?
Vapi AI is an AI voice platform that focuses on pairing human callers with artificial intelligence voice agents. A Vapi AI agent can cover inbound or outbound calls, guiding customers through a service call or using a pre-written script and knowledge base to run sales calls.
Vapi offers a number of voice templates that allow businesses to rapidly create functional AI voice agents. These agents can work across multiple languages, providing a streamlined way of expanding the capacity of your customer service call lines.
Vapi pricing starts at $0.05 per minute with customized monthly cost plans for enterprise clients. However, as an AI voice agent hosted on an API wrapper, you’ll also incur fees from the AI voice model provider that you select.
Why Use Vapi AI Voice Agents
Founded back in 2020, Vapi has been on the market for over five years, in which time it's developed a range of functionalities and benefits.
Here are some of the pros of using Vapi:
- Wide integration: Businesses can integrate Vapi into existing CRM platforms, helping to streamline the introduction of AI into their customer service tech stack.
- Call logic customization: A company can produce their own scripts and customer service pathways, with developers that have technical knowledge being able to granularly control the call experience Vapi offers.
- Scalable: Businesses can scale their use of Vapi nearly endlessly and is designed to handle a high concurrent number of calls.
However, despite these strengths, Vapi does suffer from some notable drawbacks. As it is only a voice AI platform, Vapi is unable to provide any other aspect of customer care, confined only to calls. For any customers that want to move their conversation to email or text chat, Vapi cannot provide this service, which can lead to data fragmentation and siloing over time.
Another common issue with Vapi is latency, with their reliance on an API wrapper involving third-party AI architecture that introduces delays to live calls. Even small disruptions to live calls can reduce how human their interactions seem.
Finally, Vapi favors a developer-first approach, with a high technical knowledge requirement to get started. For enterprises that lack internal expertise, the onboarding and customization process may be more challenging when compared to other available options.
How Do Bland AI Voice Agents Compare to Vapi?
Bland AI is an enterprise-grade communications platform that is built to enhance customer engagement across every single channel. Instead of just focusing on voice, like Vapi, Bland offers a winning customer experience across chat, voice, and SMS, meeting your customers exactly where they want to be.
In addition to its omnichannel reach, Bland offers the same core voice functionalities as Vapi, with flexible conversation pathways, multilingual support, and the ability to handle up to 8 million concurrent calls.
One major difference that sets Bland apart is the fact that it is self-hosted, meaning it uses its own, custom-built AI model, rather than an API wrapper to a general model. For enterprise businesses that are worried about allowing their customer data to pass to third-party companies like OpenAI or Anthropic, Bland’s self-hosted model is a significant security advantage.
Why use Bland AI Voice Agents
When comparing Bland vs. Vapi, these are the important elements that set them apart. Unlike Vapi, Bland can offer
- Fully self-hosted experience: With Bland, enterprises retain complete control over their customer data. By avoiding going through third parties, a self-hosted solution prioritizes security, privacy, and compliance.
- Extensive Omnichannel Support: Bland operates across voice, SMS, and chat, delivering a flawless and connected customer experience. Improve customer satisfaction and avoid data silos with Bland.
- Enterprise-ready infrastructure: Bland has low latency response, the ability to manage high-volume call demands, and dedicated infrastructure for your business. Bland can manage complex workflows with ease and provides your company with the customer support resources it needs.
- Simple Onboarding: Bland is straightforward to implement, connects with existing marketing and sales tech stacks, and doesn’t require extensive technical knowledge to build with. Bland offers a faster time-to-value with near out-of-the-box experiences.
While both Bland and Vapi bring a lot to the AI voice space, there’s a clear distinction between the products. Even just focusing on the self-hosted vs. API wrapper point alone, Bland is a more secure, scalable, and reliable option.
For businesses that are looking for future-proof AI voice agents, consistent customer experiences at scale, and a platform that can grow with their needs, Bland is always a message away.
Get started today by reaching out to the team.