ai-phone-agents
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Contact Center Software Is Learning to Answer the Phone Itself
Zendesk, TCN, Puzzel, Regal, UJET and Bright Pattern are chasing the same bet - that the next voice on your support line won't be human. Here is how six very different platforms are racing to get there.
Simple AI
Simple AI is a San Francisco startup building enterprise-ready voice AI agents that handle inbound and outbound B2C phone calls. Its agents answer questions, personalize offers, qualify leads, and close and upsell transactions over the phone - the company says they convert and upsell up to 30% more than trained human reps. Founded in 2024 by former Y Combinator software leads Catheryn Li and Zach Kamran, Simple AI runs on a proprietary voice stack with sub-850ms end-to-end latency and raised $14M in seed funding in February 2026.
Catheryn Li
Catheryn Li is the co-founder and CEO of Simple AI, a San Francisco voice-AI startup building phone agents that sell. After four years at Y Combinator - where she led the software team behind Startup School, the YC Library, and Co-Founder Matching - she and Zach Kamran started Simple AI in the 2024 YC batch. Their agents are trained on top human reps, know every product SKU, and the company says they outperform trained live reps by 30% on conversion and upsell. Simple AI raised a $14M seed round led by First Harmonic with Y Combinator, True Ventures, and Massive Tech Ventures. Li holds degrees in computer science and mathematics from MIT.