Privacy
Privacy Policy
This privacy policy explains how Answer AI Pty Ltd, a company incorporated in Australia (AnswerAI, we or us), collects, uses, shares and protects personal information. It covers the AnswerAI service, which answers and makes phone calls for businesses in New Zealand, and our website at answerai.co.nz. We follow New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020 and its information privacy principles. Because we are an Australian company, the Australian Privacy Act 1988 may also apply to us; where it does, we follow it as well.
In this policy, customers are the businesses that subscribe to AnswerAI; users are the people who sign in to a customer's account, such as its owner and staff; callers are people who phone a customer, or whom a customer's AI receptionist calls; contacts are people whose details a customer adds or uploads, such as a call list; and visitors are people who use our website, contact form or live demo.
Our Two Roles
We handle personal information in two different ways:
For ourselves. We decide how we use information about our customers and their users (such as account, sign-in and billing details), visitors to our website, and people who try our live demo. We are responsible to you for this information.
For our customers. When a business uses AnswerAI to answer or make its calls, we handle information about its callers and contacts on that business's behalf and on its instructions. Under section 11 of the Privacy Act, the business is treated as holding that information and is responsible to you for it. If you called a business that uses AnswerAI, please contact that business first. If you contact us instead, we will pass your request to the business or help it respond.
We do not use callers' or contacts' information for our own purposes, such as marketing or training AI models, and we never sell it. We do use our records of calls, such as when a call took place and how long it lasted, to bill the business for its usage, and we may look at a business's information when we need to support that business, keep the service secure or fix a fault.
Information We Collect
About customers and users:
Account details: the names, email addresses and mobile numbers of the people who use, or are added to, a customer's account, with their roles, profile photos and passwords (we store passwords only in hashed form). When a customer invites a colleague, we collect that person's email address and mobile number from the customer.
Business details: the business's name, address, trading hours, services, products, policies, FAQs and documents, content from its website if it asks us to read it, and the instructions, greeting and voice it chooses for its AI receptionist.
Billing details: the plan, charges, receipts and payment history. Card details are entered into a form provided by our payment processor, Stripe, and go directly to Stripe. We keep only the card brand, last four digits and expiry date, and Stripe's reference for the card.
Calendar details, if a customer connects Microsoft 365 (Outlook): access to the connected calendar so AnswerAI can check availability and add or change bookings, and the email address of the connected Microsoft account.
Records of use: call times, durations and minutes used, and the settings chosen.
About callers and contacts, which we hold for our customers:
The phone numbers of callers and of the people a business calls, and anything a caller tells the AI receptionist, such as their name, email address, address and reason for calling. A caller's details can be saved to the business's contact list.
A recording of each call, a written transcript, an AI-written summary, and the messages and records AnswerAI creates from the call, such as leads, quote requests, jobs, appointments and callbacks.
For transferred calls: the AI receptionist's short call to the person taking the transfer, and the transferred conversation between the caller and that person.
Contact details a business adds or uploads, such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, addresses and tags, along with its do-not-call list and its outbound call campaigns.
Details a business keeps about its own customers in AnswerAI, such as quotes, jobs, invoices and appointments, and the emails it asks us to send them, such as quotes, invoices and appointment confirmations.
About visitors:
Contact form: your name, business name, email address, phone number (optional), industry, topic and message, and your IP address.
Live demo: see Live Demo below.
Technical information: when you visit our website or use the portal, our servers record your IP address and browser details with your session.
How We Use Information
For our own purposes, we use information about customers, users and visitors to:
create and run accounts, and let users sign in;
provide the service each customer chooses;
bill customers, take payments, send receipts and follow up failed payments;
send service emails, such as invitations, call summaries, usage alerts and payment notices;
answer enquiries, run our live demo and follow up demo requests;
keep the service secure, prevent misuse, and find and fix faults; and
meet our legal obligations.
For our customers, we use information about callers and contacts only to provide the service to that customer: answering, making and transferring its calls, recording and transcribing them, writing summaries, messages and records, booking appointments in its calendar, sending its emails and notifications, and showing all of this in its portal.
AI and Automated Processing
AnswerAI's receptionist is an AI system. It talks with callers, answers using the information the business has given it, and can take messages, book appointments and transfer calls. After each call, AI language models write the summary, decide which messages and records to create, and choose which team members to notify. AI can make mistakes, so each business can review every call, transcript and record in its portal, and should check them before relying on them.
Some decisions about accounts are also automatic. For example, our billing system retries a failed card payment on a set schedule and suspends an account automatically if a payment stays unpaid (our terms explain the timing). If you think an automated decision about your account is wrong, contact us.
Call Recording and Transcription
AnswerAI records and transcribes every call it answers or makes, including transferred calls, so that the business can review what was said and AnswerAI can write the call summary and records.
Each business sets the greeting its AI receptionist uses. Our terms require each business to make sure callers are told, at the start of the call, that the call is recorded and that they are speaking with an AI assistant, and to tell anyone outside the business who takes a transferred call that it is recorded.
We keep call recordings for the period set by the business's plan (see How Long We Keep Information). If you called a business that uses AnswerAI, you can ask that business, or us, for a copy of the recording or transcript of your call.
Who We Share Information With
We use these service providers to run AnswerAI. They handle information to provide their services to us.
Twilio, our telephony carrier: connects every call, supplies New Zealand phone numbers, and records transferred calls.
ElevenLabs, our AI voice platform: runs the AI receptionist's side of each conversation (speech recognition, the AI voice, and an AI language model we choose from those it offers), records and transcribes calls, and writes a first call summary. In the browser demo, your browser connects to ElevenLabs directly.
OpenAI, our AI language model provider: reads call transcripts and summaries to write the plain-English summary, messages and records and to choose which team members to notify, and reads a business's website or documents when the business asks us to help set up its AI receptionist.
Stripe, our payment processor: processes card payments and stores card details.
Microsoft, if a business connects a Microsoft 365 calendar: checks availability and adds or changes bookings in that calendar.
Our email delivery provider: sends the emails AnswerAI sends, including emails a business asks us to send to its own customers.
Sentry, our error-monitoring service: receives technical details when something goes wrong in our software, which can include the account, request and IP address involved.
Browser push services: if a user turns on browser notifications in the portal, the notifications are delivered through the push service of that user's browser maker (for example Google, Apple, Microsoft or Mozilla).
Integrations a business chooses to connect, such as a real estate listings feed: we fetch the business's own listings from them.
We may also disclose information where the law requires or allows it, for example to comply with a court order.
Where Information Is Processed
AnswerAI's service providers process information outside New Zealand:
Twilio handles our New Zealand calls in its Australian region;
ElevenLabs runs its service from servers in several countries, which its documentation currently lists as the United States, the Netherlands and Singapore;
OpenAI is based in the United States; and
Stripe, Microsoft, Sentry, our email delivery provider and browser push services may process information in the United States and other countries.
We are an Australian company, so we may also access information from Australia.
When a provider stores or processes information for us, that is not a disclosure overseas under information privacy principle 12, but we remain responsible for the information. If we ever disclose personal information overseas for someone else's own use, we will do so only as information privacy principle 12 allows.
How We Protect Information
Information travels between your browser and AnswerAI, and between our servers and our providers, over encrypted (TLS) connections.
The portal requires sign-in, and each business's information is visible only to that business's own users, with further limits by role.
Passwords are stored only in hashed form.
Call recordings and other private files are served only through links that expire.
Ordinary phone calls travel over the public telephone network, which is not encrypted, and no system is completely secure.
If a privacy breach involving information we hold for ourselves is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected, as the Privacy Act requires. If a breach affects information we hold for a business, we will tell that business promptly and help it meet its own obligations.
How Long We Keep Information
Call recordings: we delete our copy automatically once it is older than the recording period of the business's plan, currently 90 days, 1 year or 2 years depending on the plan, or 90 days if the business has no plan.
Transcripts, summaries, messages and records: kept while the business's account exists.
Copies held by providers: ElevenLabs keeps recordings and transcripts of the conversations it runs, and Twilio keeps its recordings of transferred calls. These copies are not currently deleted automatically when our own copy is.
Account, business and billing information: kept while the account exists. If a customer asks us to delete its account, we delete its information, except what the law requires us to keep, such as billing records.
Emails: we keep a copy of each email AnswerAI sends (who it went to, the subject and the content) as a record of what was sent. There is currently no set period after which these copies are deleted.
Contact form and live demo details: see Live Demo below.
Live Demo
Our website lets you try AnswerAI by talking to a demo AI receptionist, either in your browser or by taking a call on your New Zealand mobile. Answer AI Pty Ltd is responsible for the information collected through the demo.
What we collect: your name, email address, industry and chosen language, your IP address and, for the phone demo, your mobile number. In the browser demo, the sound from your microphone is streamed while the demo runs.
Recording: both demos are recorded and transcribed, and the conversation is summarised, in the same way as calls to our customers.
Why: to show you AnswerAI, to review the quality of our demo, and to follow up your interest.
Who receives it: our team receives an email with your details, and you receive a confirmation email. The demo runs on ElevenLabs, and the phone demo also on Twilio.
How long we keep it: the details you enter in the demo or the contact form have no set deletion date at present, and our demo account currently keeps demo recordings for up to 10 years. You can ask us to delete your demo or enquiry information at any time.
Please use the phone demo only with your own mobile number.
Cookies and Browser Storage
Our website and portal use only what they need to work:
a session cookie, which remembers your visit and keeps you signed in to the portal, and a security cookie that protects forms against cross-site request forgery;
on our website, a setting stored in your browser for the current visit so the opening animation does not repeat; and
in the portal, settings stored in your browser, such as the business you last used and how you like lists displayed.
We do not use analytics, advertising cookies or other tracking tools on our website or portal. When you add a card in the portal, Stripe's card form may set its own cookies to help prevent fraud.
Our emails do not contain tracking pixels or tracked links. Some of our email designs load fonts and small images from other companies' servers (such as Google Fonts), which receive your IP address when your email program displays them.
Marketing
If you contact us or try the demo, we may follow up with you about AnswerAI using the details you gave us. We send marketing emails only where the law allows, every marketing email we send explains how to unsubscribe, and we act on unsubscribe requests within 5 working days. Emails about an account, such as receipts, payment notices and security messages, are not marketing and continue while the account is open.
People Our Customers Call or Add
If a business adds your details to AnswerAI, for example by uploading a call list, or calls you through AnswerAI, that business collected your information. It must tell you about the collection as the Privacy Act requires, including under information privacy principle 3A, which since 1 May 2026 has covered information collected from someone other than you. We use those details only on the business's instructions. If you do not want a business to call you, tell that business: each business has a do-not-call list in AnswerAI, and AnswerAI will not place calls for the business to numbers on that list.
Health and Telecommunications Information
If a health provider uses AnswerAI, the Health Information Privacy Code 2020 applies to the health information it collects through AnswerAI, and we handle that information for the provider on its instructions. The Telecommunications Information Privacy Code 2020 may also apply to information about calls.
Access and Correction
You can ask us for the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it. We will respond within 20 working days, as the Privacy Act requires. If you ask about information we hold for a business, such as a recording of your call to that business, we will transfer your request to that business within 10 working days and let you know, or help the business respond. Users can also update most of their own details in the portal.
Complaints
If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, contact our Privacy Officer at info@answerai.co.nz. We will look into it and reply. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to New Zealand's Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz. Where the Australian Privacy Act 1988 applies to us, you can also complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed. We will flag significant changes on this page or tell customers about them directly.
Contact Us
Answer AI Pty Ltd, a company incorporated in Australia.
Privacy questions, requests and complaints: info@answerai.co.nz, for the attention of our Privacy Officer. Help with the service: support@answerai.co.nz.