Introducing the Octabiz Voice Assistant: Run Your Business by Talking to It

Octabiz today announced general availability of its Voice Assistant, letting small business owners create invoices, check inventory, and review cash flow just by speaking, at no extra cost to any subscription. The launch comes as new research shows small businesses, not large enterprises, are leading adoption of AI voice assistants: G2's 2025 survey of over 1,400 verified reviews found that organizations with fewer than 10 employees are the single largest segment of AI voice assistant users, ahead of enterprise buyers.

The assistant is built directly into the Octabiz workspace. Say what you need, and it can:

• Create invoices, estimates, and bills from a single spoken sentence
• Look up customers, vendors, and product stock on demand
• Read back overdue invoices, today's sales, and bank balances
• Open any page in the app, such as "open the cash flow report"
• Hand off to a human teammate when a request needs approval

It shows up as a floating helper on every screen and gets out of the way the moment you start typing. Tone (professional, warm, casual, or neutral) and reply length can be configured from a short settings screen in about a minute.

Enterprise software adoption usually moves through committees and long procurement cycles. Voice AI has gone the other way: G2's research found organizations with fewer than 10 employees are the single largest reviewer segment for AI voice assistants, ahead of enterprise buyers. A small business owner rarely has a dedicated person to update inventory, check yesterday's sales, and read back what's overdue; usually that's the same person taking orders, managing a crew, or standing at a register. The Voice Assistant is built for that reality.

The Octabiz Voice Assistant is live today for all Octabiz organizations. No setup is required.

How to use the Voice Assistant

There is nothing to install. Here is the quickest way to start.

1. Open it. Go to Ask AI and choose Start a voice conversation. You can also open the Tools menu at the top of the app and pick AI Receptionist under Assistants. Both open the same assistant.
2. Allow the microphone. Your browser asks for permission the first time. If you block it by mistake, Octabiz tells you and offers a Try again button.
3. Choose how it listens. Pick Hold to talk if the room is noisy. Pick Always listen for a normal back-and-forth.
4. Say what you need. Plain sentences work best. "How many invoices are overdue?" "Find the customer Maria Lopez." "Open the invoices page."
5. Check before it saves. Turn on Ask before doing anything in the settings below, and it shows you what it is about to do and waits for your yes.

Want it one tap away? Open the Tools menu and choose Show floating orb. A small orb appears in the bottom-right corner of most pages. Tap it and pick Talk to AI.

What it can work with

The assistant works with the same records you see on screen. It can look up customers, suppliers and products, so it pairs well with Customers and Inventory. It can work with invoices, bills, estimates and expenses in Accounting. It also handles bookings, hotel reservations, rug cleaning jobs and to-dos, and it can take you to any page in the app when you ask.

If you want the thinking behind it, we wrote about why software should take requests instead of clicks.

Set the tone and reply length

The settings live on the in-app assistant page under Agents.

• Tone: Professional, Neutral, Warm or Casual.
• Reply length: One sentence, Short, Standard or Detailed.
• End the chat after silence: anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes, or Never. The default is 45 seconds.
• Say a quick "sure, let me check…" first: so you know it heard you while it looks something up.

Octabiz is an AI-powered all-in-one business platform combining point of sale, accounting, inventory, CRM, HR, and marketing tools, built for small and medium businesses in restaurants, hotels, retail, and home services.