Glossary

What is Barge-in (interruption handling)?

Barge-in is the ability of an AI voice agent to stop talking and start listening the moment a caller interrupts it. It lets the patient cut in naturally, the way people actually talk, instead of being forced to wait for a prompt to finish.

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By Alex Le, Echo product teamUpdated August 2026

Without barge-in, AI calls feel stilted and one-sided. With it, callers can correct, clarify, or jump ahead at any point.

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A real call from inquiry to booked appointment.

Press play and read along. Echo answers, switches language mid-call, reads live openings straight out of the calendar while it is still talking, then writes the booking back into it. Nothing is left queued for staff to finish afterwards.
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Echo in action

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Related terms

All 41 terms in the AI calling glossary.

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