A third of our “talked” calls were machines. What that did to every number downstream.

We audited every AI call placed for a travel company between 19 and 22 Sep 2026. A call counted as “talked” when the transcript had at least one line from the lead's side.

What we found

226 of the 739 talked calls had no human on them. The only lead lines were a voicemail greeting or a call screener asking the caller to stay on the line. Another 53 were mixed. Only 460 calls, 62%, were real conversations.

Why it matters

Those machine calls inflated pick-up by a third. 183 of them were graded as follow-ups, so leads sat in the CRM with a next-call time nobody had asked for. Our retry rule then called voicemail boxes back at “their” time.

What we changed

A call whose lead lines are all machine phrases now counts as no answer. It does not reach the CRM as a conversation, and it does not trigger a callback.