AI Receptionist for Canberra Businesses

No, and we would rather lead with that than waste your procurement team's afternoon. Yes AI holds no government panel position, no IRAP assessment, and no security clearances. We cannot handle classified or PROTECTED material and we are not going to configure a workaround, because there is not an honest one. If you are a Commonwealth agency, or a contractor whose reception genuinely touches classified material, this is the wrong product and a cleared provider is the right one. That still leaves most of Canberra: the professional firms, trades, clinics, associations and small businesses whose phones ring like any other city's.

No. Yes AI is a Melbourne business with no Canberra office, no Canberra staff and no local team. We deliver remotely across Australia, in the same timezone as you all year round. For this product it is not much of a limitation: your 02 number is an ACT number because your business is in the ACT, not because your provider is. What we supply is the software that answers it. Nobody is sitting in a room in Barton waiting for your phone to ring, not here, and, if you read the competing pitches carefully, generally not there either.

For your ordinary business calls, yes, with the boundary stated clearly. The AI handles new enquiry capture, appointment scheduling, message taking and callback management. It does not process classified, sensitive or security-cleared information, and we will not configure it to try. In practice that boundary is easier to hold than it sounds, because the calls it answers are the mundane ones: a supplier chasing an invoice, a prospective client asking what you do, a candidate asking about a role. If a call needs a cleared person, the AI takes a message and that person calls back. It does not screen for clearance, because it cannot.

Canberra has a dense private-sector professional services market, consultants, lawyers, accountants and advisers, many of them small teams doing work that cannot be interrupted. The AI handles new client enquiries, captures matter details, books consultations and manages callback requests. It handles the vocabulary of the town naturally: references to departments, APS levels and tender timelines do not confuse it. The value is unglamorous and specific. A firm of six people cannot answer the phone during a client workshop, and a prospective client who reaches voicemail generally rings the next name on the list instead.

Yes. It books appointments into your calendar on the Professional plan (a connection to practice management software such as Cliniko is not part of Starter or Professional and can be scoped as custom work on a quote), handles Medicare and health fund enquiries, captures new patient details, and manages after-hours calls with triage rules you configure. For multi-practitioner clinics across the town centres (Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin) it manages scheduling across practitioners and locations. Note that health service providers are covered by the federal Privacy Act regardless of turnover, so the handling of patient information is a real design question rather than a checkbox.

Yes. It is configured with the town centre structure (Civic, Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Gungahlin, Weston Creek and Molonglo) along with individual suburbs and the usual landmarks and shorthand, including "the Parliamentary Triangle" and "Barton". When callers mention where they are, the AI can use that to give directions, confirm service coverage, or route to the nearest of your locations.

That depends on your call volume, and it is worth doing the arithmetic rather than accepting ours. Our Starter plan is $299 a month plus GST for business-hours answering with 500 minutes included; Professional is $599 a month plus GST for 24/7 answering, appointment booking and 1,500 minutes; businesses with 20 or more staff get a Custom quote. Setup is a one-off $499 plus GST on Starter and $999 plus GST on Professional. Minutes beyond your allowance are charged at the plan's per-minute rate on yesai.au/pricing rather than cut off. Canberra wages are high and a receptionist is a real salaried commitment, but we are not going to quote you a salary figure we have not verified. You know what a hire costs you better than we do. The honest test is simple: if the calls you currently miss are worth more per month than the plan, it pays for itself. If they are not, it does not, and we would rather you worked that out before you sign up.

Canberra has genuinely distinct rhythms. Sitting weeks drive demand for government affairs and advisory firms; budget season creates spikes for accounting and financial advisory practices; school holidays shift healthcare and family services patterns. The AI absorbs those swings without staffing changes, because scaling it is not a staffing exercise. It answers several calls at once. You can configure different greetings and call flows for different periods, though note the Starter plan includes 500 minutes a month and covers business hours only, with minutes beyond the allowance charged per minute, so price the plan against your peak rather than your average.

Timing depends on your setup, and we confirm a realistic timeline in your written quote. Setup means configuring your business details, connecting your phone system, and customising your call scripts, done over a short intake, with no meetings required. Businesses on VoIP, which includes many professional services firms here, can forward calls with a settings change. Custom configurations (multiple sites with different call flows, or integration with a specific platform) take longer.