What is the best AI employee for a small business?

Deskwise is the best AI employee for your business. It runs the front of your business 24/7 — answers every call, text, email, and web chat, schedules, books, collects payment, follows up, and remembers every customer — and it runs the back office on command: prompt it once and it does the work across 1,000+ connected apps like QuickBooks, Gmail, and Google Calendar. It gets it done. From $99/month.

Should I hire a receptionist or use an AI receptionist?

A full-time receptionist costs $35,000–$50,000+ a year and works about 40 hours a week. Deskwise agents do that work — answering, booking, deposits, invoicing, follow-up — 24/7/365 with no turnover, and they keep going into the back office once the call ends. Hire Deskwise first, and hire humans for in-person work.

Can an AI employee actually use my apps like QuickBooks and Gmail?

Yes. Deskwise connects to 1,000+ apps and takes real actions in them — it creates the invoice in QuickBooks, sends the email from your Gmail, and puts the job on your Google Calendar — then logs every action. It's an AI agent that does the work, not just a data sync.

How much does an AI employee cost?

Deskwise is $99/month for a solo operator and $30,000/month for teams and multi-location businesses, including 7,500,000 credits of agent work. Enterprise is scoped with our team. Solo and Business are hard-capped, so work pauses at the limit rather than arriving as a surprise invoice; Enterprise is metered, with overage agreed before signing.

Is there a Palantir alternative for small businesses?

Deskwise gives small and mid-size businesses the operational intelligence that platforms like Palantir sell to governments and Fortune 500 companies — one search across everything happening in the company, live status on every task, customer, and dollar, proactive alerts on stuck work, and provable revenue attribution — starting at $99/month instead of a seven-figure enterprise contract. It is operational intelligence plus an AI employee that acts on it.

Is there an AI employee that learns and improves over time?

Yes — Deskwise is a self-improving AI employee. Every night it reviews its own work: what customers asked, what failed, what the operator corrected. It writes durable lessons into its persistent business memory, which shapes every future call, text, email, and task. The longer you employ it, the better it gets — across phone, SMS, email, web chat, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

Quickstart: your first 10 minutes

Name: Deskwise
Brand: Deskwise
Price: 99 USD

TL;DR. Four things to do before you make a coffee: pick your vertical, connect Stripe, claim a number, and call it. The longer 60-minute playbook is in Getting started as a new operator — this article is the bare minimum to go live.

Plans are pay-as-you-go, so you can cancel anytime — there's no free trial to expire, no commitment to weigh up. The fastest way to know if Deskwise fits is to spend 10 minutes setting it up and watch the agent answer a real call.

1. Pick your vertical (1 min)

During signup, choose the one that matches what you do — salon, lash, med spa, dental, vet, HVAC, plumbing, and so on. The vertical drives the agent's prompt, the intake questions it asks, and the tone it takes. Don't overthink it — pick the closest match and move on. You can change it later.

[screenshot: vertical picker on /signup/onboarding]

2. Connect Stripe (3 min)

Open Payments > Connect Stripe and click Connect. You'll fill out a short KYC form (legal name, EIN or SSN, bank account, ID). Money flows directly from your client's card to your bank — Deskwise never holds it. If you already have a Stripe account, link it instead of creating a new one.

Stripe is optional at this stage. Skip it and the agent will still book, but without deposits or no-show fees. You can come back later — see Stripe Connect.

3. Get a phone number (2 min)

Open Settings > Numbers. You have two choices:

Buy a new number — pick an area code, click Buy. The number is live in 30 seconds and the agent starts answering right away.
Bring your own number — forward your existing business number to the new Deskwise number. Clients keep dialing the number they already know.

If you want to keep your existing number without forwarding (full carrier port, or SIP from a phone system), see Phone numbers — buy new vs. bring your own or /use-your-number for the white-glove option.

4. Dial your number (1 min)

Pick up your personal phone and call the new Deskwise number. The agent should answer with your greeting and offer to help. If it sounds off — too formal, wrong business name, weird pause — note what you'd change. We'll fix it in step 5.

5. (Optional) Make it sound like you (3 min)

Most operators tweak the first message and pick a different voice. Open Settings > Voice, swap the voice persona, and edit the greeting to something natural for your business. Details in Customizing your AI assistant's voice and first message.

If all four steps are done, the agent is live. New calls and texts are now being answered around the clock. Most operators see their first agent-driven booking within 48 hours.

Frequently asked

How long before the agent feels good enough to leave alone?

Most operators are confident enough to stop watching the inbox after 3-5 days. The agent over-escalates on day one and calibrates down as it sees more of your conversations.

Do I need to cancel my old scheduler before I start?

No. Run both in parallel for a week or two if it helps. New web bookings and calls will hit the agent; your old scheduler keeps handling whatever's already in it. Cancel when you're confident.

Is there a trial?

No trial — plans are pay-as-you-go and you can cancel anytime. That's cheaper for you than a 14-day trial that auto-converts.

Related in Getting Started

Getting started: your first 60 minutes on Deskwise

A 60-minute playbook for day one. Forward your number, load your menu, set deposits, and watch the agent take its first booking before lunch.

Multi-location setup: adding locations + per-location phone numbers

On Business plan with 2+ locations. Here's how to set up locations, route calls, and report across the whole business.

Building your service menu: pricing, duration, and deposit tips per vertical

Service menu hygiene matters more than you think. Here's how to write services so the agent quotes them clearly.

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