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Introduction

Personas are unified AI agents that manage all your phone numbers and use cases in one place. Instead of configuring each phone number separately with different prompts and settings, create a single intelligent persona that handles everything - from smart call routing to maintaining consistent personality across all interactions.

Smart Routing

Personas automatically route calls to the right pathways based on conversation context, like routing billing questions to your billing pathway.

Visual Builder

Design your agent’s identity, voice, behavior, and routing rules through an intuitive visual interface.

Version Management

Test changes safely in draft mode, then promote to production when ready. View diffs and maintain version history.

Live Testing

Chat with your persona before going live to test changes, routing logic, and responses.

Phone Integration

Apply one persona across multiple phone numbers, or use different personas for specific use cases.

API Compatible

Use personas programmatically through the persona_id parameter in your API calls.

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Getting Started

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Step 1: Access Personas

Navigate to the Personas section in your Bland dashboard. You’ll see a new tab in the sidebar dedicated to persona management.

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Step 2: Create Your First Persona

Click “Create Persona” to open the visual builder. You’ll be guided through setting up your persona’s core configuration.

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Building Your Persona

The persona builder is organized into five main sections, each handling different aspects of your AI agent:

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General Configuration

Define your persona’s identity, voice settings, and communication channels. Key Settings:
  • Identity: Set your persona’s name, role, and description
  • Voice Selection: Choose from available voices (like “June”, “Karl”, or “Estella”)
  • Language: Select primary language
  • Background Noise: Add ambient sounds like “Office-style soundscape” with typing, chatter, and office sounds
  • Modalities: Configure communication channels:
    • Voice & Calls (with “Add to Inbound Numbers” integration)
    • SMS Messaging (coming soon)
    • Web Widget (coming soon)

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Behavior Configuration

Configure your persona’s conversational behavior and routing logic.
Configuration Options:
  • Global Prompt: Large text area to describe the persona’s overall behaviors, personality, and motivations
  • Wait for Greeting: Toggle to only begin speaking after the recipient has said something
  • Interruption Threshold: Slider to adjust response timing (e.g., 500ms) for how quickly the persona responds
  • Conversational Pathways: Set up intelligent routing rules with ”+ Add routing” button to direct conversations to specific pathways based on context

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Knowledge Integration

Connect your persona to knowledge bases for intelligent information retrieval. Knowledge Features:
  • Connected Knowledge Bases: Toggle switches to enable/disable specific knowledge bases (e.g., “Bland Documentation Knowledge Base”)
  • Add More: “Connect from library” dropdown to search and add knowledge bases from your library with ”+ Add” buttons
  • Manage Knowledge Bases: Link to knowledge base management
  • Continuous Learning (Coming Soon):
    • Question & Answer Improvements
    • Conversational Memory

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Analysis & Webhooks

Set up post-conversation analysis and webhook integrations. Analysis Configuration:
  • Generate Summary: Toggle to automatically create short summaries after each conversation with customizable summary prompt
  • Data Extraction: Configure citation schemas for extracting specific information from calls (Enterprise only)
  • Webhook Integration:
    • URL field for webhook endpoint (e.g., “https://example.com/webhook”)
    • Events dropdown to select which webhook events will be sent to your endpoint during the call
    • “Test Webhook” button for validation

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Version Management

Manage your persona’s versions and deployment lifecycle.
Version Control:
  • Draft vs Production: Work on changes in draft mode without affecting live calls with “Testing Draft Version” indicator
  • Changes Tracking: Visual diff showing:
    • Added items (“+1 field”) with specific changes like “KB IDs → 0”
    • Updated items (”- 1 field”) showing modified fields like “Interruption Threshold”
  • Action Buttons:
    • “Promote to Production” button for deploying changes
    • “Reset Draft” button to revert draft changes
    • “Version History” button to access previous versions
  • Status Indicator: “Changes Ready to Promote” message when draft has pending changes

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Testing Your Persona

Before you deploy your persona, use the built-in testing interface to make sure it’s working as expected. On the right side of the persona builder, you’ll find a testing modal where you can start web calls with yourself using the current status of your persona. This lets you test changes before they go live.

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Phone Number Integration

Apply your persona to phone numbers for immediate use in live calls.

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Inbound Number Configuration

From your inbound numbers dashboard, you can easily switch any number to use a persona from the configuration column.
Integration Options:
  • Direct Persona Assignment: Apply persona to handle all inbound calls
  • Pathway Override: Combine persona with specific pathway routing for focused use cases
  • Multiple Number Support: Use the same persona across different phone numbers

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Integration Benefits

  • Consistent Experience: Callers get the same personality regardless of which number they call
  • Centralized Management: Update persona settings once, apply everywhere
  • Smart Routing: Automatic pathway selection based on conversation context
  • Unified Analytics: Track performance across all numbers using this persona

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API Usage

Use your personas programmatically through the Bland API for automated workflows.

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Basic API Integration

Reference your persona in API calls using the persona_id parameter: 
{
  "phone_number": "+15551234567",
  "persona_id": "your_persona_id_here",
  "task": "Additional context or overrides"
}

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Finding Your Persona ID

Use the List Personas API endpoint to retrieve your persona IDs: 
curl -X GET "https://api.bland.ai/v1/personas" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your_api_key_here"
This returns all your personas with their IDs, names, and configuration details. Copy the id field from the persona you want to use. You can also try this directly from our API docs playground.

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Parameter Override Behavior

When using persona_id in API calls:
  • Persona settings provide the base configuration
  • Any additional parameters in your API request override the persona defaults
  • This allows for flexible, context-specific customization while maintaining consistency