Choosing phone numbers for your AI agent

Picking the right numbers improves trust, answer rates, and recognition.

Written By Catherine Weir

Last updated About 3 hours ago

Your 365 Agents number is the endpoint your AI agent answers calls on. The right choice depends on how you plan to use it.

Local numbers

A local area code (matching the region you're serving) has the highest answer rate. Recipients are much more likely to answer a local number than an out-of-state one.

  • Best for customer service, appointment reminders, sales follow-up

  • Ideal for local businesses serving a specific region

Toll-free numbers (800, 888, 877, etc.)

Broadly recognizable and nationally neutral. Often associated with established businesses. Harder to block, but also less personal.

  • Best for national brands, customer support hotlines

  • Good for any inbound-primary use case where you want a single memorable number

Multiple numbers for the same use case

If you're running an outbound campaign to many recipients, spreading traffic across multiple numbers can help — up to a point. Each number needs to be aged and registered individually, and carriers actively look for "snowshoeing" (spreading a single message across many numbers to evade filters).

Our recommendation: for most businesses, one primary number per use case. For franchise or multi-location businesses, one number per location.

What to avoid

  • Using the same number for marketing and 2FA — marketing reputation issues will hurt your 2FA delivery

  • Using a brand-new number for day-one high-volume outreach — new numbers get mislabeled more easily

  • Vanity patterns that could resemble phishing (numbers that closely match bank or government lines)