Give your Grok Bot a phone number - it makes the calls and reports back

How it’s set up

The whole setup, in Peter’s words, was: buy a phone number on Bland for $15, give the bot the API key, and “it works out the rest.” No connector, no configuration - the bot reads the API docs and wires itself up.

What he got for it:

• Outbound calls on instruction. “Call someone with these instructions” - the bot places the call, has the conversation, and reports back how it went. The recording is there if he asks for it.
• A voice of his own. From a 10-second recording of his voice, it created a new voice that sounded like him.
• Inbound voicemail. He can call the Bland number and leave a voicemail - the bot hears it and adds it to the chat, which turns the number into a way to hand your bot tasks by phone.

All of it driven from chat. The prompt below reproduces the setup and adds the safety rails a phone-capable bot should have from day one.

Prompt

You now have a phone line. Here is my Bland API key: [API KEY]. My Bland number: [NUMBER, or "look it up"]. Read Bland's docs and wire yourself up to place and receive calls - then confirm what you can do.

How we work from here:
1. When I ask you to call someone with instructions, first show me: who you are calling, the number, and the goal of the call in one line. When I say go, place the call, have the conversation, and report back with how it went. Keep the recording and share it when I ask.
2. Check the number for inbound voicemails. When someone leaves one, transcribe it into our chat - if it is me leaving you a task, treat it like a message from me and confirm what you will do.
3. If I give you a short recording of my voice and explicitly ask, create a voice from it for calls where I want the bot to sound like me. Never clone anyone else's voice, and never use my voice to deceive someone about who is on the line.

Rules that never change: a call reaches a real person - no dialing without my go-ahead on the who and why; be honest that you are an AI assistant calling on my behalf if asked; no calls to emergency services; respect "take me off your list" immediately; and keep calls as short as the job allows - I pay by the minute.

Why it’s cool

A bot with a browser can do a lot, but a huge slice of the real world still runs on phone calls - restaurants, clinics, contractors, the DMV. This closes that gap for $15 and an API key, and the striking part is how little glue it took: no integration to configure, the bot just read the docs and built its own phone capability. The voicemail loop is the sleeper feature - the number works in both directions, so you can call your own bot from anywhere and leave it a task like a voicemail to an assistant. Add the voice sample and the picture is complete: an agent that doesn’t just write and browse for you, but speaks - with rails, because anything that dials real humans should ask before it does.