Virtual receptionist
Virtual receptionist: a person, or an AI?
Updated November 6, 2026
Choose your business details, voice, primary language and available Canadian number before payment. Save your setup and come back to edit it whenever you need.
Already started? Return to your saved setupA virtual receptionist answers your business line from somewhere other than your front desk. It can be a person working for an answering service, or software that talks on the phone, often called an AI receptionist. Cedri is the second kind: an AI that answers every call in English and French, books during the call and texts you a summary, for $18.99 CAD a month with 30 answered calls included.
What the words usually mean
Businesses use several names for the same need, someone or something that picks up when you cannot:
- A live answering service or virtual receptionist: people who answer for many businesses, usually take a message, and pass it on.
- A voicemail or auto-attendant: a recording, or a menu of keys to press. It speaks, but it cannot answer a question or book anything.
- An AI receptionist or AI voice agent: software that holds the conversation, answers from what it knows about your business, and can book the appointment.
What Cedri does on a call
Cedri is an AI phone receptionist for small businesses in Canada. It answers the business line in English and French, books the appointment during the call, and texts the details to the owner and to the customer.
It opens every call by saying it is an AI assistant and that the call may be recorded. It asks your trade’s questions before it books, answers from your website, your services and your hours, and puts the caller through to the number you choose when they ask for a person. After every answered call, you get a text with the caller’s number and a short summary.
When a person is the better choice
Be honest about what your calls need. Cedri gives a price only when it is in your service list, your answers or your website, and it hands questions about licences, insurance and warranties to your team. If most of your calls need a judgment only you can make, a person, or a transfer to your own phone, may serve them better. Cedri can do the transfer: you choose the number.
Keeping your number, and where call data goes
You keep your number: forward every call to your Cedri line, or only the ones you miss. How call forwarding works.
Your bookings and customer records live in Canada. Your call audio and its transcript pass through the United States. Security.
Questions
Is a virtual receptionist the same as an answering service?
Often, yes: both words usually mean people who answer your calls from somewhere else. An AI receptionist does the same job with software instead of a person. Cedri answers in English and French and can book the appointment during the call.
What is an AI answering service?
Software that answers your business calls, day and night, without a person on the line. Cedri is one, made for small businesses in Canada: it answers in English and French and books during the call. How to choose an AI receptionist.
Does Cedri pretend to be a person?
No. It says it is an AI assistant at the start of every call, even when you write your own greeting, unless your greeting already says so.
Can a virtual receptionist answer in French?
Cedri can: English and French on the same line, with no menu. When a caller switches language, Cedri switches too. Bilingual AI receptionist.
How much does Cedri cost?
One plan: $18.99 CAD a month or $189.99 a year, with 30 answered calls a month and no per-minute charges. Past 30 calls the line keeps answering, and extra calls come in packs on the web: 10 for $12.99, 25 for $29.99 or 50 for $49.99. See pricing.
Can I hear it before I pay?
Yes. Call the demo line at (437) 475-4321, or read recorded calls with their transcripts on the demo page. The demo line is a demo, not a support line.
Cedri at a glance
Price: $18.99 CAD a month, or $189.99 a year. One plan, no contract. You pay when your line goes live.
Calls: 30 answered calls a month included. Calls under 10 seconds don’t count. Past 30, Cedri keeps answering, and extra calls come in packs on the web: 10 for $12.99, 25 for $29.99 or 50 for $49.99.
Languages: English and French on the same line. Apps for iPhone and Android.
On the phone: Cedri says it is an AI assistant and that the call may be recorded.
Your number: keep it. Forward it to your Cedri line.
How call forwarding worksTry it: call the demo line at (437) 475-4321.
Brand line: Canada's Bilingual AI Receptionist
Cedri (cedri.ca) is made by Cedri Inc. It is not a product of Zen Solutions or CliniCall, and it has no link to the US EPA's CEDRI reporting system or to the CeDRI research centre in Portugal.
$18.99 CAD a month, 30 answered calls included.
To sign up: go to cedri.ca/signup or use the iPhone or Android app. Setup takes about five minutes, and you pay when your line goes live.
One plan, $18.99 a month with 30 answered calls. See what’s included
Hear it answer: call the demo line at (437) 475-4321. It is a demo, not a support line.
Get the app on iPhone and Android.