What is answering machine detection (AMD)?
Answering machine detection (AMD) is the dialer feature that classifies an answered call as a live person or a machine by analyzing the audio right after pickup. Dialers use the result to route humans to an agent and send machines to a voicemail drop or a hang-up.
Classic AMD listens for patterns: a short "hello" followed by silence suggests a person, a long uninterrupted greeting suggests voicemail. The analysis takes a moment, and that delay is the source of the dead air people notice on telemarketing calls. On predictive and parallel dialers it also matters for compliance, because the FCC counts a call as abandoned if a live person is not connected to a rep within two seconds of finishing their greeting.
AI voice agents handle the same problem differently. Since the agent can speak immediately, it can respond to a person right away and still recognize a voicemail greeting and wait for the beep. The term voicemail detection covers that broader capability.