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TCPA rules for AI voice calls

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This page states what the regulator's own text says. It is not legal advice, and state law may add more.

Under the TCPA, the US robocall law, the FCC's 2024 ruling 24-17 treats a call using an AI-generated voice as an "artificial or prerecorded voice" call. It needs the called person's prior express consent unless it is for an emergency or exempt (excused by rule), and written consent if it advertises or telemarkets. The FCC's AI-specific disclosure rules remain proposals.

The February 2024 ruling on AI voices

FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (CG Docket No. 23-362, adopted February 2, released February 8, 2024) confirms that the TCPA's limits on an "artificial or prerecorded voice" cover "current AI technologies that generate human voices", because "a person is not speaking them". Fully synthetic voices and clones of a real person's voice are treated alike.

Existing rules therefore apply. Callers need prior express consent unless the call has an emergency purpose or is exempt, and prior express written consent for calls that advertise or telemarket. The message must state at the beginning who is responsible for the call (47 CFR 64.1200(b)(1)). The ruling adds that the TCPA "does not allow for any carve out of technologies that purport to provide the equivalent of a live agent."

The statute lets a person or entity sue for $500 per violation or the actual monetary loss, whichever is greater, and a court may increase the award to not more than three times that amount for a willful or knowing violation (47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3)).

The ruling is the FCC's interpretation of the statute. On June 20, 2025, in a fax case (McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., No. 23-1226), the Supreme Court held that in civil enforcement proceedings under the TCPA, district courts are not bound by the FCC's interpretation of the Act and must determine its meaning themselves, "affording appropriate respect to the agency's interpretation."

Prior express written consent is a signed written agreement that "clearly authorizes the seller" to deliver advertisements or telemarketing messages using an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice to a stated number. It must include a clear and conspicuous disclosure that signing is not a condition of purchasing anything, and an electronic or digital signature counts where federal or state law recognizes it (64.1200(f)(9)).

A 2023 order (FCC 23-107) would have limited each consent to one seller from January 27, 2025. The Eleventh Circuit vacated that change, and its mandate issued on April 30, 2025. FCC order DA 25-621, effective August 29, 2025, restored the old wording, noting that the Commission had postponed the revised rule and that it "had not gone into effect."

Health care calls and calling a patient back

For a residential line, the rule says an artificial or prerecorded voice call delivering a "health care" message "made by, or on behalf of," a HIPAA "covered entity" or its "business associate" "requires no consent" within one call a day and three a week per patient, if the caller honors opt-out requests (64.1200(a)(3)(v)).

For a wireless number, the same call needs no written consent but is "still covered by the general consent requirement" (64.1200(a)(1) and (a)(2); FCC 15-72, footnote 481). 64.1200(a)(9) exempts from it calls by or for healthcare providers that are not charged to the called person or counted against plan limits and meet eight conditions, among them: only to the number the patient provided, a listed purpose such as "appointment and exam confirmations and reminders", "generally one minute or less", one message a day and three a week, and an opt-out in each message.

No consent provision in 64.1200 mentions calling back someone who called first. FCC 15-72 says giving a number to a healthcare provider "constitutes prior express consent for healthcare calls subject to HIPAA" by a covered entity and its business associates, for calls closely related to why the number was given (paragraph 141, footnote 474). It quotes its 1992 order: if a person's number is "captured" by Caller ID "without notice to the residential telephone subscriber", that person "cannot be considered to have given an invitation or permission to receive autodialer or prerecorded voice message calls" (footnote 205). State law may add more.

Since April 11, 2025, a person may revoke consent "using any reasonable method", and the rule names an automated voice or key-press opt-out on a call as a reasonable means per se. Callers must honor a revocation within ten business days (64.1200(a)(10)).

FCC 26-67, a Report and Order adopted September 30, 2026, takes effect November 25, 2026. Under its revised rule, callers "may designate any of the following methods as the exclusive means to revoke consent": an automated, interactive voice or key-press opt-out on a call; a reply text using one of seven listed words, such as "stop"; "and/or" a website or telephone number the caller designates. A caller that designates a method must "clearly and conspicuously disclose" it on the call or in the text, and "is not required to process revocation requests made by any other means." A caller that designates none must still process revocation requests "made by any reasonable means." A caller may treat an opt-out from an informational call as applying only to that category of informational calls. An opt-out from a call that advertises or telemarkets revokes consent to all of that caller's future advertising or telemarketing calls.

A proposal in the same FCC document asks whether to shorten the ten-business-day limit (a joint letter it cites suggests seven business days) and whether to require a one-step option to stop all future robocalls. Reply comments are due December 28, 2026.

Proposed AI disclosure rules

FCC 24-84 is a notice of proposed rulemaking, adopted August 7, 2024 and published at 89 FR 73321 on September 10, 2024. It would define an "AI-generated call" as one that uses "any technology or tool to generate an artificial or prerecorded voice or a text using computational technology or other machine learning, including predictive algorithms, and large language models," to produce content "over an outbound telephone call." Callers would have to disclose, when they collect consent, that the consent may cover AI-generated calls, and "at the beginning of each call, clearly disclose to the called party that the call is using AI-generated technology." Reply comments were due by October 25, 2024.

The FCC's 2026 regulatory agenda (91 FR 53092, August 14, 2026) lists the proceeding as a long-term action with "Next Action Undetermined". A Federal Register search on November 14, 2026 found no final rule in Docket 23-362.

What this page leaves out

This page reports what the documents say and gives no legal advice. The 2024 ruling speaks of AI "that initiates any outbound telephone call", and AI agents answering calls that customers place are outside this page. So are the do-not-call rules, the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule, call recording consent and the EU AI Act, whose official text could not be opened for this review.

One state law was checked. California's AB 2905 (Chapter 316, Statutes of 2024) requires the "unrecorded, natural voice announcement" that must precede a message played by an automatic dialing-announcing device to "Inform the person called if the prerecorded message uses an artificial voice", defined as "a voice that is generated or significantly altered using artificial intelligence."

Often confused with

  • Robocall. In the FCC's AI proceeding a robocall is any call made with an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice, so an AI agent holding a live conversation still places robocalls.
  • Prior express consent. For informational robocalls it may be given orally or in writing; prior express written consent is the signed agreement required for robocalls that advertise or telemarket.

Sources

Checked against its sources on 14 Nov 2026. Lexicost has no commercial relationship with any vendor named on this site.

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