Air AI vs Retell AI
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Air AI if you want defunct ai voice agent; subject of a 2026 ftc enforcement settlement (Autonomous agent, enterprise); choose Retell AI if you want platform to build, test, deploy, and monitor ai voice agents for calls (Autonomous agent, usage).
| Air AI | Retell AI | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Defunct AI voice agent; subject of a 2026 FTC enforcement settlement | Platform to build, test, deploy, and monitor AI voice agents for calls |
| Type | agent | platform |
| Autonomy | Autonomous agent | Autonomous agent |
| Pricing | enterprise | usage · $0.07/min voice engine (model + telephony billed on top); Enterprise from $8,000 |
| Best for | smb | developers, smb, mid-market, enterprise |
| Deployment | saas | saas, api |
| Modalities | voice | voice, text, api |
| Models | proprietary | model-agnostic, gpt, claude |
| Protocols | none | rest-api, function-calling |
| Integrations | - | Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, ElevenLabs, PlayHT |
| Capabilities | 2 documented | 4 documented |
Air AI
- +2023 demos were unusually natural and long-duration for the era and reached a wide audience
- -Defunct: no live product, and the air.ai domain now belongs to an unrelated company
- -Subject of an FTC enforcement action and 2026 settlement banning the owners from marketing business opportunities
Retell AI
- +Provider-flexible: bring your own telephony, voices, and LLM, or use Retell's built-in carrier
- +Structured Conversation Flow Agents (nodes and transitions) give fine control alongside looser prompt-based agents
- +Usage-based pricing with no mandatory base subscription and free credits to start; built-in testing and monitoring
- -Advertised $0.07/min covers only the voice engine; LLM, telephony, and international add to real per-minute cost
- -Building reliable structured flows for complex calls takes meaningful human setup
Which should you choose?
Air AI is defunct ai voice agent; subject of a 2026 ftc enforcement settlement, best for smb. Retell AI is platform to build, test, deploy, and monitor ai voice agents for calls, best for developers, smb, mid-market, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.
This comparison is generated from the sourced Air AI and Retell AI profiles. Open either profile to review its evidence and last-reviewed date.