Your AI receptionist

An AI receptionist that
actually runs the front desk.

DeskAI answers your customers' texts, works out what they want, checks who's actually working and what's actually free, then books them in and updates your calendar. It changes and cancels bookings too, and answers the everyday questions — where you are, what things cost, how long they take. All day, every day, including the hours you're shut.

We set it up with you, on the phone or in person · No card to start · You pay when you go live
What your customers see

A text comes in. A booking goes in your calendar.

Real conversations, start to finish. Nobody types a keyword and nobody picks from a menu — they text the way they always have.

Hair studio
Sarah · +61 4XX XXX XXX2:14 pm
Hey, do you have anything at 4pm today?
Hi! Yes — Taylor has 4pm free. Cut, or cut & colour?
— 4 sec later —
Just a cut thanks — name is Sarah
Perfect Sarah — booked with Taylor today at 4pm for a cut. See you then!
Added to your Google Calendar ✓
Tattoo studio
Liam · +61 4XX XXX XXX8:47 pm
You got anything Saturday for a small piece?
Hey! Yes — Dane has 11am or 2pm Saturday. Which suits?
— 6 sec later —
2pm works, name's Liam
Locked in Liam — Dane, Saturday 2pm. See you then!
Added to your Google Calendar ✓
Physio clinic
Nina · +61 4XX XXX XXX7:12 am
Hi, anything tomorrow morning for my shoulder?
Morning! Alex has 9:30 or 10:15 tomorrow. Initial or follow-up?
— 5 sec later —
Follow-up at 9:30 please — Nina
Done Nina — booked with Alex tomorrow at 9:30. See you then!
Added to your Google Calendar ✓
What it does for you

It does the job you keep having to stop and do

Not a chatbot and not an out-of-office. DeskAI has your roster, your bookings and your prices, so it can actually finish the conversation — enquiry to booking — without you touching your phone.

💬

Answers every message, straight away

A new enquiry at 9pm gets a real answer at 9pm. So does the one that arrives while you're with a customer. Nobody sits waiting, and nobody rings the shop down the road instead.

📅

Your calendar stays up to date on its own

Every booking, change and cancellation lands in your Google Calendar as it happens — so the calendar on your phone is always the real one, without you copying anything across.

🔁

Handles changes the way a person would

Running late. Wants a different day. Wants to see someone else. Needs to cancel. DeskAI has the conversation, sorts it out, and updates the booking and your calendar to match.

🛡️

Knows who's actually working

It reads your roster and your bookings before it says a word, so it only ever offers times that are genuinely free, with people who are genuinely on that day.

🗓️

Set your roster by dragging

Build the week by dragging names onto days. Give someone different hours, mark a shift cancelled, copy last week — it takes a couple of minutes and DeskAI books from it immediately.

★

See how full your week is

A simple view of how booked each day is, so you can see where the quiet spots are before they arrive and put someone on where you actually need them.

✅

Knows when to come and get you

A complaint, an odd request, something it isn't sure about — it doesn't have a guess. The customer gets a natural "let me check that for you", and your phone gets a text.

👥

Your team fills in its own availability

Staff log in with a PIN and submit the shifts they can work; DeskAI chases whoever hasn't. They can opt in to a text when they get a booking, and the roster stays pinned and current in your team chat.

📊

See what it has been doing

Every conversation, every booking it took, every change it made — in one place, in plain English. You can read any thread back and see exactly what was said.

🧠

Answers the everyday questions

Where you are, what the parking's like, what things cost, how long they take, whether you're open Sunday. You tell it about your business once and it stops being your job.

📸

Sends photos on request

Clients asking to see the team? DeskAI texts the right photos by MMS automatically — several people arrive as one tidy collage, one message, one cost — and it never sends any nobody asked for.

📵

A missed call doesn't stay missed

If somebody rings and you can't get to it, DeskAI texts them back straight away with what's actually free — so a call you couldn't answer still turns into a booking.

✍️

Tell it about your business once

Your address, hours, prices, parking, what you do and don't offer. Fill it in once and it answers from that — the same way a receptionist would after their first week.

💁‍♀️

Knows the team like a regular does

Each staff member fills in her own profile — style, pressure, the things clients actually ask. "Who does deep tissue?" gets a real answer from what she wrote, and a question she didn't answer is never guessed at.

✋

Step in whenever you want

Type into any conversation and DeskAI steps back and lets you handle it. When you're done it picks up again. It never talks over you.

💸

Watches your SMS bill

Replies are kept short and written in the cheap character set, so a reply that would have billed as two messages goes out as one.

📇

One place for the whole desk

Conversations, the day's agenda, your contact book, and every booking — with attendance and no-shows marked off as the day goes. Add a booking straight from a thread, or export the whole conversation in a tap.

🧾

A booking taken in four taps

Who's taking them, how long, starting when, and who it's for — then the money. Cash, card, or split across both, counted for you. Nothing is written to the calendar until the payment is answered, so a booking either exists and is paid for or was never started.

👆

Drag a booking, and it asks first

Slide a block to a new time or a different person and the desk reads the move back before it commits — who, from when, to when, and whether it's changing hands. A sleeve on a busy desk can't quietly move somebody's afternoon.

🕶️

Blank the screen in one gesture

The reception screen faces whoever is standing at it, with every client's name and every dollar on it. Double-tap the space bar — or the screen itself — and the whole thing goes soft behind the logo. Two taps and she's back on exactly what she was doing.

🔒

Locked down properly

Sign-in can be set to need a one-time code as well as a password, and the dashboard can lock itself with a passcode when it's left idle on the front desk. Staff accounts see the conversations and the day's bookings, nothing else — and DeskAI won't discuss one client's booking with another number.

Try it yourself

Don't take our word for it. Ask it.

This is DeskAI, answering for itself. Ask it anything — how it would work in your trade, what happens when two people want the same time, whether it can handle your Sunday. If it answers you well, that is the same thing answering your customers.

Hi — I'm DeskAI. Tell me what sort of business you run and I'll tell you exactly how I'd handle your messages and bookings.
Answers come from DeskAI itself. It can't see any real business's bookings — for that, book a demo.
Can you trust it

It would rather ask you than get it wrong

One rule sits under all of this: if DeskAI isn't sure, it doesn't guess. Here is what that means on an ordinary Tuesday.

🔍

It can't offer a time that isn't free

Every time it is about to name a time, it checks your real roster and your real bookings first. It can't answer from memory, and it can't tell somebody they're booked unless they actually are.

🚫

The same slot can't go to two people

Even if two customers text at the exact same second, only one of them can have it. The other is told straight away and offered something else, instead of both turning up.

👤

It won't put a name on a booking nobody gave

If a customer hasn't said who they are, DeskAI keeps the slot and asks — rather than guessing from something earlier in the thread and writing the wrong name against the booking.

🧍

One customer, one place at a time

It won't book the same person into two appointments at once. That's the quiet mistake that costs you an empty room and a no-show, and it can't happen.

⚠️

If it can't read something, it says so

Write something in your calendar it can't make sense of and DeskAI won't assume it's nothing. It keeps that time blocked and puts it in front of you to sort out.

✋

Anything it isn't sure of comes to you

Rather than send a reply it can't stand behind, it holds it, tells the customer you'll come straight back to them, and texts you. You see exactly what it was going to say.

★ Roster editor

Build your week right in the dashboard

No spreadsheets, no screenshots to the group chat. Click a cell to set each person's shifts — and DeskAI instantly knows who it can book, and when.

  • Click to set morning, afternoon, or all-day — the whole week at a glance
  • Custom hours per person — someone starting at 11 is offered from 11, never before
  • Right-click to mark a shift cancelled; every cancellation is tracked
  • Draft next week privately, book against it yourself, publish when it's settled
  • Copy last week, or let ★ Fill by how full the week is draft it from who's actually getting booked
  • Projected capacity updates as you edit, and the week exports as a picture — with the capacity figures for you, or without them for the wall
Approval controls

Nothing sends without your say-so

Prefer a human in the loop? Turn on review mode and every AI reply waits for you. The client only ever sees what you approved, and a booking is only written once you've sent the reply that confirms it.

  • Send — fire the reply and write the booking in one tap
  • Replace — reword it your way; your correction becomes a worked example it learns from
  • Discard — drop a draft you don't want and nothing goes out
  • Tap Why to see the conversation and the booking behind the draft
Reception

The desk itself, on the iPad by the door

The AI handles the phone. This is the screen the person on reception works from all day — the day laid out by staff member, the walk-in who has just come through the door, and the money as it comes in.

  • Take a booking in four taps: who, how long, when, who for — then the payment
  • Money before the calendar. Nothing is written until the payment is answered, which is exactly what a client paying now to hold a later time is doing
  • Somebody starting right now is marked as arrived on the spot — nobody has to tell the screen what it just watched happen
  • Cash, card or split counted as it's taken, so cash-up at close is already done
  • Drag a block to a new time and it reads the move back before anything moves
  • Hide the staff list and give the calendar the whole screen when the day is full
  • Double-tap to blank the screen the moment somebody walks up to the desk
Your own website

A website that updates itself while you work

The old way: edit the roster, screenshot it, log in to the website, paste the picture in, upload — and do it all again the next time somebody swapped a shift or sent a new photo. Your DeskAI site is the same roster and the same profiles — the roster goes live the moment you publish it, and a new photo the moment you approve it. A shift gets covered at six in the morning and the website has already changed. Nobody touches anything.

  • Who's working today, straight off your roster — and the week ahead beside it
  • A shift claimed or covered by your staff is on the site seconds later, and in the morning Telegram post too
  • Next available moves with every booking taken, so a client always knows who is free and when
  • Your team submit their own photos and profiles. You approve them — and the approved version is on the website, with no upload and no logging in anywhere
  • Your prices come from the dashboard, so one place to change them, not two
  • Your five-star Google reviews on the page — only the five-star ones, pulled from your listing
  • Text to book on every page, answered by the AI — and job applications land in your dashboard
  • Describe your shop in a sentence and the AI designs it. Preview it, change what you like, publish when you're happy — no two shops come out the same

Seven jobs that used to be somebody's morning

Every one of these was done by hand in a real shop before it was automated here.

✓
Taking the bookingsThe phone is answered, the booking is written, the calendar is updated.
✓
The morning roster postWho's on today goes to Telegram before anyone's awake.
✓
The website rosterNo screenshot, no upload — the site is already showing it.
✓
Counting the week's takingsRecorded as each payment is taken, totalled without a calculator.
✓
Asking who's on next weekEveryone is asked for their availability and reminded if they forget.
✓
Filling the empty shiftsThe gaps go out to the team and get claimed without you chasing.
✓
Covering a shiftSomebody pulls out, somebody else picks it up, everything updates itself.
How it works

Live in an afternoon

No apps to build. No integration project. Point your business phone number at DeskAI and you're running — and you can keep it in test mode first, replying only to numbers you've listed, until you're happy with it.

1

Connect your number

We spin up a dedicated SMS number, or forward your existing one. Takes 15 minutes.

2

Link Google Calendar

Sign in with Google. DeskAI reads your calendar, blocks conflicts, and writes new bookings straight in.

3

Set your roster. You're live.

Write a paragraph about your shop and DeskAI fills the settings in for you to check, then click in the week's shifts. A go-live checklist makes sure nothing's missing before your number answers a single client — then flick the switch.

Who's it for

Built for appointment-based businesses

If your customers book by SMS and your staff work shifts, DeskAI fits. There's nothing in it that's tied to one trade — your services, your lengths, your prices and your team are all things you type in.

💇
Hair & beauty
Salons · barbers · nails · lashes
🧘
Wellness & clinics
Massage · physio · chiro · yoga
📅
Studios by appointment
Tattoo · training · grooming
🔧
Trades on bookings
Detailers · mobile mechanics · repairs

We're being straight with you: DeskAI isn't a demo — it has been running the front desk of a real appointment business day and night for months, answering real clients and taking real bookings. Shifts, lengths and prices are shifts, lengths and prices, whatever the trade. If yours isn't up there, tell us about it on a demo and we'll show you honestly whether it fits.

Pricing

From $9.29 a day

A casual receptionist costs you that in the first quarter of an hour — and goes home at five. Light is the business suite on its own: the roster, reception, payment tracking, the staff, the numbers and your Google Calendar, with no AI answering your phone. Every plan after it is the whole product — the number, the AI, the dashboard, the calendar, your own website that updates itself live, the lot — and the only thing that changes between those is how many conversations a month you need.

Founding shops

The first five shops get three months at half price

Any plan on this page, half price for your first three months, locked in from the day you join — in exchange for being a reference shop: a real business we can point the next owner at when they ask who already runs on this. Five spots, then it's gone and the prices below are simply the prices.

No AI needed

DeskAI Light

You want the admin gone, not a robot on your phone

14 days free
$9.29 / day
billed $65 a week, after the fortnight
Book a consultationWe set every new shop up with you, on a call. The first fortnight is free either way — the roster, reception and your takings, on your real bookings — and you pay nothing if you stop.

The whole business suite, with the receptionist switched off. Everything that runs your shop from the inside, your day in your Google Calendar — and nothing answering your texts.

  • Visual roster editor, custom hours per person, right-click cancellations
  • ★ Fill by how full the week is drafts next week from who is actually getting booked
  • Staff submit their own availability, and get chased if they don't
  • The reception screen — bookings in four taps, and every payment recorded as it is taken
  • Cash, card and split counted as they're taken, so cash-up is done
  • Attendance and no-shows, marked off as the day goes
  • The month's numbers: hours rostered against hours booked, per person
  • Your team's alerts, and who has read them
  • Google Calendar connected — bookings land where your phone already looks
  • The day's bookings beside you, hour by hour, as reception takes them
  • No AI answering your texts — switch it on any time
Now switch the phone on

Everything above, plus the AI answering your texts

The five plans below are Light and the receptionist together — your own number, every text answered day and night, bookings made, moved and cancelled without you, and your own website on top. The only thing that changes between them is how many conversations a month you need; the product is identical.

Starter

Quiet shop, one or two staff

$13.57 / day
billed $95 a week
110 conversations a monthabout 4 a day
$3.74 per conversation

Studio

Steady bookings, a small team

$27.86 / day
billed $195 a week
260 conversations a monthabout 9 a day
$3.25 per conversation
Most shops

Busy

Phone going all day, full roster

$50.00 / day
billed $350 a week
520 conversations a monthabout 17 a day
$2.91 per conversation

Peak

Open long hours, big team

$75.00 / day
billed $525 a week
870 conversations a monthabout 29 a day
$2.61 per conversation

Max

Big shop, phone never stops

$113.57 / day
billed $795 a week
1,400 conversations a monthabout 47 a day
$2.46 per conversation

The fortnight is free on Light, and only on Light. There is no number to pay for and no AI answering, so a shop can run on it for two weeks at no cost to anybody — and that is the whole reason the plans above cannot do the same. Light is not a cut-down demo either — it is the business suite without the receptionist, and your roster, your reception screen, your takings and your team all work exactly as they do on every plan above. Another $4.29 a day is the whole difference between Light and Starter. Move up whenever you want the phone answered too, and nothing is set up twice: the shop is already built, and the AI starts on the roster you have been running all along.

A conversation is one client, start to finish — however many texts it takes to answer them and get them booked. Not per message.

Billed weekly, counted monthly. The charge comes out once a week so it sits with the rest of your week's bills — but your conversations are pooled across the whole month, so a flat-out Saturday is covered by a quiet Tuesday.

Go over and nothing breaks. You move up to the next plan for that month, and only pay the difference. No surprise bills, and the AI never stops answering mid-conversation.

More than one shop? Each location gets its own number, its own roster and its own calendar, so each one takes its own plan — and they all sit behind the one login.

Setting up costs nothing. Build your shop, connect your calendar, load your roster and preview your website for free, for as long as you like. The first week is paid up front on the day you go live, and the same amount comes out the same day each week after that.

No lock-in contract. Cancel any time. Your number, your calendar and your data stay yours.

Compared to

The other options fall short

Answering SMS yourself, or forwarding to a booking app, isn't the same as having an AI receptionist.

😩 Doing it yourself

  • Miss messages during appointments
  • Nothing after hours until you check tomorrow
  • Double-bookings from typing errors
  • Chasing the team for next week's availability, every week
  • Hours a week on messages instead of customers
  • No real idea which days are quiet until they've already been quiet

🚀 With DeskAI

  • Every message answered in seconds, day or night
  • Bookings roll in overnight, in your calendar by morning
  • Only offers times somebody is actually working
  • The same slot can never go to two people, even if they text at the same second
  • Never guesses — anything it isn't sure of comes straight to you
  • Reschedules and cancellations handled by text, calendar and all
  • Review every reply first, if you want to
  • Reception, every payment recorded, and the day's takings on one screen
Questions

The things everyone asks first

Short answers. If yours isn't here, ask us on the demo call.

Does it work when I'm closed?

Yes — and that's when it earns its keep. Enquiries that land at 9pm, on a Sunday, or while you're mid-appointment get a real answer with real times, and the booking is in your calendar before you next look at your phone. You set your opening hours, so it books people into the hours you actually work while still answering outside them.

Will this save me paying someone to answer messages?

That's the point of it. The messages that eat a receptionist's day — what's free, can I move it, how much is it, where are you, are you open — DeskAI handles start to finish, all day, for a fraction of a wage. What's left for a person is the handful of things that genuinely need one, and DeskAI passes those straight to you rather than guessing.

Can I see what it's doing, and step in?

Any time. Every conversation is there to read, with the bookings it made alongside them. Type into a thread and DeskAI steps back and lets you take it; when you're done it picks up again. If you'd rather approve everything first, turn on review mode and nothing goes out until you press Send.

Do I have to change my phone number?

No. We can spin up a dedicated SMS number for you, or simply forward the number your clients already have. Either way it takes about 15 minutes and your existing number keeps working exactly as it does now.

What if it says something wrong?

It isn't allowed to answer from memory. Before it names a time, it has to check your real roster and your real bookings — who's on, what's actually free, what still fits before you close — and it can only tell the customer what came back. It cannot tell a client they're booked unless the engine just booked them. And anything it isn't sure about — a complaint, an odd request, something it's never seen — it hands to you: the client gets a natural “let me double-check that for you”, and your phone gets a text. It also won't put a name on a booking that nobody gave it — if a client hasn't said who they are, the booking is held and it asks, rather than guessing from something earlier in the thread. And if a reply ever quotes one of DeskAI's own internal terms instead of plain English, that message is stopped before it sends and the thread comes to you; the text is kept whole so you can see exactly what it was about to say. On top of all that you can turn on review mode, where nothing goes out until you Send, Replace or Discard it, and tap Why to see the conversation it was working from.

Can it double-book me?

No. Not because it's careful — because it isn't able to. Before anyone is booked, the exact slot is set aside for them — and it's refused if it's taken, outside that person's hours, after you close, or too tight against the appointment before it. Only a slot that's been set aside can become a booking. And if two customers text at the exact same second, only one of them can have it — the other is told straight away and offered something else, rather than both turning up. The same rule stops one customer being booked into two places at once. Google Calendar mirrors what the engine booked, and anything you type into the calendar by hand is imported back within a couple of minutes — so the two never argue about what's free.

What if I type something into the calendar it can't read?

It blocks the time and asks you, rather than assuming. A calendar entry it recognises as a break — lunch, training, a day off — is treated as one: that person is unavailable and no room is held. An entry that names one of your people but can't be read as anything in particular is treated as unknown, not harmless: the person and a room are both held, no money or arrival is recorded against it, and it's shown to you as its own list to classify. It is never quietly rewritten into something tidier, because the one thing DeskAI knows about it is that it doesn't know.

Which calendar does it work with?

Google Calendar, connected through Google's own sign-in. DeskAI reads it so it never books over something already there, and writes confirmed bookings straight in. With an extra Google connection switched on it also reads back the times you move by hand, so a booking you drag to a new slot is the one DeskAI works from.

What happens after hours, or when I'm with a client?

That's the whole point. Messages get answered in seconds at 2am the same as 2pm, so bookings roll in overnight and they're in your calendar by morning — instead of sitting unread until you next pick up your phone.

Can I jump into a conversation myself?

Any time. One tap pauses the AI and hands you the thread, so you can handle anything that needs a human touch. If you get pulled away mid-conversation, DeskAI takes the thread back on the client's next message once ten quiet minutes have passed — so a thread isn't left dead because you forgot to switch it back on.

What if someone's hours change, or they call in sick?

Change it in the roster editor and DeskAI knows immediately — the next reply already reflects it. You can set custom start and finish times per person, right-click to mark a shift cancelled, keep an away list, copy last week, or let ★ Fill by how full the week is draft next week from who's actually getting booked.

How long until we're actually live?

An afternoon. There's no app to build and no integration project — connect the number, link Google Calendar, click in this week's shifts, and DeskAI takes it from there. You can put it in test mode first, where it only replies to numbers you've listed, and watch it work before a client ever sees it.

Do I still have to chase my team for their availability?

No. Staff log in to their own page with a PIN and tick the shifts they can work next week, and DeskAI texts a reminder to whoever hasn't. They can also opt in to a text whenever they get a booking, and the current roster stays pinned and up to date in your team chat instead of being re-posted every week.

What can I actually see about how the business is doing?

How many bookings came in, and how many of those the AI took versus you. Hours rostered against hours actually booked, per person, so you can see which shifts pay for themselves. Attendance, including who repeatedly doesn't show. And how many enquiries turned into bookings.

We don't want an AI answering our phone. Is there anything here for us?

Yes — that's DeskAI Light, $65 a week, and the first fortnight on Light is free because there is no number and no AI to pay for. You get the whole business suite without the receptionist: the roster editor with custom hours and ★ fill by how full the week is, staff submitting their own availability, the reception screen with bookings and payment tracking, attendance and no-shows, the month's numbers, job applications, and your Google Calendar connected so every booking reception takes lands in the calendar your phone already reads. The AI simply isn't switched on. If you decide later that you do want the phone answered, nothing gets set up twice — your shop is already built and the AI starts on the roster you've been running.

What does the person on reception actually use?

A screen built for a finger on an iPad, not a mouse. The day laid out per staff member; a booking taken in four taps — who's taking them, how long, starting when, who it's for — and then the payment, cash, card or split. Nothing is written to the calendar until the payment is answered, so there's no half-made booking to trip over, and somebody starting right now is marked as arrived without anyone having to say so. Drag a block to a new time and it reads the move back to you before it commits.

Someone standing at reception can read that screen, though.

Double-tap the space bar — or the screen itself — and the whole thing goes soft behind the logo, names, numbers and takings included. Two taps again and she's back on exactly what she was doing; nothing is closed and nothing is lost.

Is it safe to leave open on the front desk?

Yes. Sign-in can be set to need a one-time code texted to you as well as a password, and the dashboard can lock itself behind a passcode when it's been left idle on the desk. Staff accounts see the conversations and the day's bookings only — not the roster editor, the analytics, the contact book, the settings or the training tools. And DeskAI will not discuss one client's booking with a different number.

Something specific to your setup? Ask us on a 15-minute call →

Stop losing bookings to a missed SMS.

We’re setting every new shop up ourselves at the moment. Book a 15-minute call and we’ll have you running by the end of it.

Book a consultation →
Book a consultation

We'll set your shop up with you

Fifteen minutes on the phone and you'll be running. We build the shop with you on the call — your staff, your hours, your prices — so there is nothing to work out on your own afterwards. Or if you'd rather do it in person, we'll come to you and have the whole thing running inside an hour. Either way it costs nothing and there's no card.