AI calls to opted-in contacts: consent, disclosure, opt-outs

Consent before the first call

In a declaratory ruling released on February 8, 2024 (FCC 24-17), the FCC confirmed that the TCPA's restrictions on artificial or prerecorded voices "encompass current AI technologies that generate human voices": before such a call, absent an emergency or an exemption, the caller must have the called party's prior express consent. The ruling adds that the TCPA allows no carve-out for technology presented as the equivalent of a live agent.

47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2) and (a)(3) set the stricter bar for a call that "includes or introduces an advertisement or constitutes telemarketing". Placed through an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial voice to a cell phone or another line (a)(2) lists, or in an artificial voice to a home line under (a)(3), such a call needs prior express written consent, with the exceptions each paragraph lists. Paragraph (f)(9) defines that consent as an agreement in writing, signed by the person called and naming the number, that says clearly signing is not a condition of buying anything.

A 2023 FCC rule that would have limited each consent to calls from one seller at a time never took effect. The Eleventh Circuit vacated it in an opinion of January 24, 2025, and the FCC put the earlier definition back in its rules on August 29, 2025. In June 2025 the Supreme Court also held that district courts in enforcement proceedings may decide for themselves whether the FCC reads the TCPA correctly; what that means for any one ruling is a question for your lawyer.

What each call says, and when it may call

At the beginning of the message, the business must state clearly who is responsible for the call, by the name it is registered under with the state, and during or after the message a telephone number for it, not the number of the equipment that placed the call (47 CFR 64.1200(b)(1) and (b)(2)). For telemarketing messages, and some others to home lines, that number must let anyone make a do-not-call request during regular business hours.

Public Utilities Code section 2874 sets California's own opening for calls placed through an automatic dialing-announcing device: before the prerecorded message plays, an unrecorded announcement in a natural voice must give the nature of the call and the business's name, address and number, ask whether the person consents to hear the message and, since January 1, 2025, say if the message uses an artificial voice.

Section 2872(c) keeps such a device from placing a call that is received in California between 9 at night and 9 in the morning. Section 2872(f) leaves out of the article a device that does not dial at random or in sequence and only carries messages to established business associates, customers or others with an established relationship, along with any call the recipient asked for. Ask your lawyer whether your calls sit inside the article or under that exemption.

The FCC's calling-hours rule, 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1), allows no telephone solicitation to a residential subscriber before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the called party's location, and 64.1200(e) applies that limit to telemarketing calls and texts to cell numbers to the extent the FCC's 2003 order describes.

FCC 24-84, a proposal of August 2024, would have callers using an AI-generated voice disclose it at the start of each call, and the FCC's 2026 regulatory agenda lists the next step on it as undetermined. In California, SB 1001 reaches a bot used online to hide that it is a bot "for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election", and no user who discloses that it is a bot is liable under it. Its text defines online as "appearing on any public-facing Internet Web site, Web application, or digital application"; whether it reaches a call you place is for your lawyer to say.

Opting out

Under 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10), in force since April 11, 2025, an opt-out through an automated voice or key-press mechanism on a call, a reply of stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel or unsubscribe to a text, or a website or number the caller names for opt-outs revokes consent by itself. A reply in other words counts too when a reasonable person would read it as a request to stop, and the rule says every request must be honored "within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request".

Among the messages 64.1200(b)(3) covers is any artificial voice message that includes an advertisement or is telemarketing and reaches a home line or a cell phone. Each must offer an automated voice or key-press opt-out within two seconds of naming the business, and using it must put the number on the caller's do-not-call list and end the call at once; a message left on voicemail must give a toll-free number that reaches the same opt-out.

Other ways of asking, such as a voicemail or an email to the business, create a rebuttable presumption that consent was revoked (64.1200(a)(11)). One text confirming the request, with no marketing in it, is allowed, and it is presumed to be within the person's consent when it goes out within five minutes (64.1200(a)(12)).

Two changes are pending. The part of the rule that would make an opt-out from one kind of informational message reach a caller's unrelated robocalls and robotexts is waived until January 31, 2027 (DA 26-12). And FCC 26-67, adopted on September 30, 2026, would let a caller make one of the methods the rule names the only way to opt out, if it says so clearly on the call or in the text; it takes effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which had not happened on October 16, 2026.

Texts count as calls

The FCC said in its 2003 TCPA order that the rule on automated calls to cell numbers covers both voice calls and text calls (FCC 03-153), and since March 26, 2024 its do-not-call rules apply to telemarketing texts to cell numbers as well (89 FR 5098). Whether a given texting system falls under the rules on automatic telephone dialing systems is a question for your lawyer.

Texts from an ordinary local number travel on 10DLC, the 10-digit long code channel, where The Campaign Registry says each brand and its messaging provider is verified before it may send, and a business registers through a messaging provider rather than with the registry itself. By Twilio's own account of its process, campaign reviews take 10 to 15 days.

What this means for a small business

Our page on AI outbound calls describes the calls we build. In short, consent stays yours and the system adds no one: the only people it rings are the ones you have marked as having agreed, within the hours the written plan sets. Its opening says what your lawyer settles, it never passes itself off as a person, and it answers truthfully when someone sincerely asks whether it is automated.

Any opt-out on a call ends it at once and puts a do-not-contact mark on the contact, which the system reads before every later call. On a call your lawyer treats as selling, the spoken or key-press opt-out comes right after the business is named, and no voicemail is left unless the written plan adds a toll-free number that reaches the same opt-out. Texts wait until the registration in your name is approved.

We read these rules on October 15 and 16, 2026, and two of them have changes pending. This is general information, not legal advice. Your rules are yours to set with your own lawyer.