AI voice calls and the TCPA: what consent a recovery call needs

What the FCC decided in 2024

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act restricts calls made with “an artificial or prerecorded voice”. Whether a voice produced by an AI model fits that phrase is a question the FCC answered in a declaratory ruling, FCC 24-17, adopted on 2 February 2024 and released on 8 February.

The ruling confirms that the TCPA’s restrictions on artificial or prerecorded voices cover current AI technologies that generate human voices. It also says the TCPA allows no carve-out for technology that claims to be the equivalent of a live agent. An agent that listens, answers questions and adapts as it goes is still placing an artificial-voice call.

From there the ordinary rules apply. The statute bars artificial-voice calls to a mobile number without the called party’s prior express consent, outside emergencies and a few exemptions, and the ruling repeats that callers must get that consent before using an AI voice. A footnote adds the stricter case: when the call includes an advertisement or is telemarketing, the FCC’s rules require prior express written consent.

What written consent has to contain

Prior express written consent has a definition in the rules, at 47 CFR 64.1200(f)(9). It is:

• an agreement in writing, signed by the person being called;
• that clearly authorizes the seller to deliver advertisements or telemarketing using an automatic dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice;
• that names the phone number those calls may go to;
• with a clear and conspicuous disclosure that signing authorizes those calls, and that the person does not have to sign as a condition of buying anything.

An electronic or digital signature counts, as long as federal law or state contract law recognizes it as valid.

A recovery call exists to get someone to finish a purchase. That reads to us as marketing, so we plan for the written standard, and ACR’s defaults are built on that reading. If your lawyer sees your calls differently, the settings below are where that decision shows up.

Why a checkout text opt-in does not cover an AI call

A Shopify checkout can ask shoppers to sign up for marketing texts and emails. The checkout data ACR receives records those two choices. It has no field for calls.

Compare that with the list above. A box that offers marketing texts does not authorize calls with an artificial voice, and it does not carry a disclosure saying so. ACR therefore treats a Shopify shopper’s call consent as unknown. With Require consent on, which is the default for new campaigns, their call steps are skipped and the reason is written to their history. They still get texts and emails if they opted in to those.

Call consent can reach ACR in three other ways: in the consent object of a Custom API event, in the consent columns of a CSV import, or entered by a person on the lead page, where it is saved with the source “manual”.

The SMS consent covers calls setting

Some stores word their checkout consent so that it names calls, including automated or AI calls. For them, each campaign has a setting called SMS consent covers calls. It is off by default.

With it on, a shopper who has no call consent on record is treated as having the same answer for calls that they gave for texts. An SMS opt-out then stops calls too, because in ACR an opt-out always wins over any setting. With it off, Shopify shoppers get texts and emails, and calls only when call consent was recorded another way.

What the agent says about itself

If a shopper asks whether they are talking to an AI, the agent says yes. No setting changes that answer. Separately, a campaign setting decides whether the agent also says it is an AI when it introduces itself. It is off by default, and the honest answer to a direct question stays either way.

The federal rules have their own requirements for artificial-voice calls. Under 64.1200(b), the message must state clearly at the beginning who is responsible for the call, and during or after the message give that business’s phone number. When you write the brief, make sure the opening names your store.

The voice calls page covers recording and how a call runs, and compliance lists every default. State calling hours have their own post, and so do opt-out requests.

We wrote this from ACR’s settings and the FCC texts as they stood on 7 November 2026. Your own consent wording needs a lawyer’s review, and this post does not stand in for that advice. If you want to walk through your own consent wording with us, book a call.