Your team has valuable conversations every day, but listening to every call recording isn’t realistic. Shape’s AI Insights helps turn those conversations into information your team can actually use.
AI Insights analyzes recorded calls made through Shape and can provide call summaries, searchable transcripts, sentiment analysis, AI scoring, coaching feedback, recommended next steps, and more. Managers can use it to review conversations at scale, while individual users can quickly understand what happened on a previous call before following up.
And because the analysis can be tailored to different departments, AI Insights can look for the things that actually matter to your organization rather than applying the same generic analysis to every conversation.
Currently, AI Insights requires Shape’s built-in native telephony and call recording. Calls made through a separate third-party phone system are not currently supported.
What Can AI Insights Tell You?
Once an eligible call has been analyzed, Shape can turn the recording into several useful layers of information.
Call Summary
Get a quick overview of the conversation without listening to the entire recording.
The summary can capture the purpose of the call, important discussion points, customer questions or concerns, and key outcomes.
This is especially helpful before following up with someone. Instead of trying to remember what happened on the last call, users can open the record and quickly get back up to speed.
Searchable Call Transcript
AI Insights creates a speaker-separated transcript with timestamps so you can see what was actually said during the conversation.
You can search the transcript and select a timestamp to jump directly to that point in the recording.
For managers, this can save a huge amount of time. If AI identifies an objection-handling opportunity during a 30-minute call, you can go directly to that part of the conversation instead of listening from the beginning.
Sentiment Analysis
AI Insights can evaluate the overall sentiment of the conversation to help identify whether an interaction was generally positive, neutral, or negative.
Sentiment gives you another way to quickly understand how a conversation went and can help surface calls that may deserve additional review.
AI Score
Calls can also be evaluated against the criteria included in your AI Insights prompt.
Depending on your configuration, that might include areas such as:
- Discovery
- Rapport
- Communication quality
- Objection handling
- Product or service knowledge
- Next steps
- Compliance criteria
Instead of treating every completed call the same, your team gets another data point for understanding the quality and outcome of the conversation.
Coaching Opportunities
AI Insights can identify areas where a conversation went well and where there may be room for improvement.
For example, it might identify that a user built strong rapport but missed an opportunity to ask an important discovery question or establish a clear next step.
This makes AI Insights especially useful for managers who want to coach from actual conversations without spending hours manually reviewing recordings.
Recommended Next Steps
Depending on your configuration, AI Insights can also recommend what should happen next, including things like:
- Follow-up actions
- Status recommendations
- Follow-up dates
- Email drafts
- Text message drafts
The goal isn’t just to tell you what happened on the call. It’s to help your team figure out what to do with that information.
Where to Find AI Insights
There are two primary ways to access AI Insights in Shape, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
From an Individual Record
AI Insights are available directly within the Contact Log on individual records.
Find the applicable call activity to review its recording and available AI analysis. For eligible calls, you can also manually request AI Insights from the call activity.
This is usually the most helpful workflow for an individual user.
If you’re about to call someone and want to remember what happened during your previous conversation, you don’t need to leave the record. Review the previous call’s summary, transcript, and insights, then continue working.
From the Call Recording Report
AI Insights are also available from the Call Recording Report.
This gives managers and other authorized users a broader view of recorded calls and their associated AI analysis.
Instead of opening individual records one at a time, managers can use the report as a central location for reviewing calls, transcripts, summaries, AI Scores, and coaching information across their team.
A good rule of thumb: Use the Contact Log when you’re working with a specific person. Use the Call Recording Report when you’re reviewing call activity across your team.
Automatic vs. Manual AI Analysis
You don’t necessarily have to manually request AI Insights every time you want a call analyzed.
Shape can be configured to automatically process eligible calls based on the rules established during your AI Insights setup.
For example, your organization might choose to:
- Analyze every eligible recorded call
- Analyze calls that meet a minimum duration
- Use different prompts for different departments
Some teams prefer to analyze nearly every meaningful conversation. Others may want to exclude very short calls, voicemails, or conversations that don’t contain enough information to justify a full analysis.
These rules are configured as part of your AI Insights setup. If you’d like to adjust which calls are automatically analyzed, contact your Shape account representative or Shape Support.
Want to Analyze a Call Manually?
You can also manually run AI Insights on an eligible recorded call.
The AI Insights option is available from:
- The individual call activity in the Contact Log
- The Call Recording Report
This gives you flexibility when a particular call wasn’t automatically processed but you still want to analyze it.
Make AI Insights Relevant to the Conversation
Not every department has the same type of phone call, so they shouldn’t necessarily receive the same analysis.
AI Insights prompts can be configured by department.
For example, a Sales team may care about:
- Discovery
- Qualification
- Objection handling
- Rapport
- Buying signals
- Clear next steps
A Customer Service team may care more about:
- The reason for the call
- Customer sentiment
- Resolution
- Escalation
- Follow-up
In mortgage, a Loan Officer and Loan Officer Assistant may also have very different conversations. An LO prompt may focus more heavily on borrower goals, qualification, loan scenarios, objections, and next steps, while an LOA prompt may focus more heavily on documentation, outstanding items, application progress, and borrower questions.
That department-level configuration helps make the analysis much more useful than a generic call summary.
Take It Further With Advanced AI Insights
For organizations that want AI Insights to evaluate calls against their own processes, AI Insights Advanced supports custom AI prompts.
This is where AI Insights can become much more specific to how your organization operates.
Instead of simply asking AI to analyze a sales call, for example, a custom prompt can be designed to look for things like:
- Did the user ask the discovery questions your team expects?
- Were specific products or services discussed?
- What objections came up, and how were they handled?
- Was a clear next step established?
- Were important disclosures or talking points included?
- Were there missed opportunities?
- Were there strong buying signals?
- Did the user follow your organization’s preferred process?
- What coaching feedback would be most useful?
Different departments can have different prompts because a “good call” can mean something completely different depending on the job.
This is one of the most useful ways to think about custom AI Insights. You’re not just asking AI what happened. You’re teaching it what your organization cares about when reviewing that type of conversation.
If you’re interested in building custom prompts around your team’s workflows, talk with your Shape account representative about AI Insights Advanced.
Using AI Insights for Coaching
One of the most practical uses for AI Insights is manager coaching.
Traditionally, call coaching means randomly selecting recordings and listening through them to find something worth discussing. That works, but it doesn’t scale very well.
AI Insights gives managers a faster starting point.
You can review the summary, transcript, AI Score, sentiment, and coaching observations first. If something stands out, jump into the relevant portion of the actual recording.
That makes it much easier to identify things like:
- Great calls worth using as examples
- Conversations where a user struggled with an objection
- Calls with unclear next steps
- Negative customer interactions
- Coaching trends that appear across multiple calls
- Opportunities to reinforce behaviors that are working well
AI doesn’t replace the manager’s judgment. It helps the manager decide where their attention is most valuable.
Using AI Insights With Automated Actions
AI Insights can become even more useful when paired with Shape’s Automated Actions.
AI Score results can be incorporated into automation and used as criteria for actions such as:
- Applying tags
- Identifying compliance risks
- Creating tasks
- Sending notifications
- Starting drip campaigns
That means your workflows don’t have to rely only on basic activity data like whether a call was completed.
They can also react to information Shape learned from the conversation.
For example, you could use an AI Score as part of a workflow designed to surface high-value conversations for follow-up or identify calls that need additional attention.
The best automation will depend on what your AI prompt is evaluating and what you want your team to do with the result.
AI Insights for Compliance Review
AI Insights can also be configured to look for specific language, disclosures, processes, or other criteria during recorded conversations.
This can provide an additional layer of visibility when reviewing calls and help organizations identify conversations that may warrant closer human review.
It’s important to treat this appropriately.
AI-generated compliance observations are an additional review tool and should not be treated as legal advice or as a replacement for your organization’s compliance program, policies, legal counsel, or human review. AI-generated results may be incomplete or inaccurate.
If an AI analysis identifies something important, use the transcript and original recording to review the actual conversation.
Getting the Most Out of AI Insights
AI Insights becomes much more valuable when it’s connected to a real workflow instead of being treated as another report to check occasionally.
A few ways we recommend using it:
For individual users: Review the previous AI call summary before your next follow-up so you can pick up where the conversation left off.
For managers: Start with AI summaries, scores, and coaching observations, then listen to the calls that actually deserve deeper review.
For coaching: Look for patterns across conversations rather than treating every AI observation as an isolated event.
For automation: Consider whether AI Scores can help identify conversations that should trigger a different follow-up process.
For different departments: Make sure the analysis reflects what success actually looks like for that team.
For Advanced customers: Build prompts around the questions and behaviors your organization actually cares about. The more relevant the criteria, the more useful the analysis becomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does AI Insights analyze every call?+
Not necessarily.
Automatic processing depends on the rules established during your organization’s AI Insights setup. Some organizations analyze every eligible recorded call, while others only process calls that meet certain criteria, such as minimum call duration.
You can also manually run AI Insights on eligible calls.
How long does AI Insights take?+
Most eligible calls are analyzed within a few minutes after the call recording becomes available.
Can I manually run AI Insights?+
Yes. Eligible recorded calls can be manually submitted for AI Insights from either the individual call activity in the Contact Log or the Call Recording Report.
Can different teams receive different analysis?+
Yes. AI Insights prompts can currently be configured by department.
This is helpful when different teams handle fundamentally different conversations, such as Sales and Billing or Loan Officers and Loan Officer Assistants.
Can Shape customize what the AI looks for?+
Yes. AI Insights Advanced supports custom prompts that can be designed around your organization’s processes, coaching goals, terminology, and other criteria.
Can I search the transcript?+
Yes. AI Insights transcripts are searchable and include timestamps. You can select a timestamp to jump to that portion of the call recording.
Where can I see AI Insights on a record?+
Open the individual record and find the applicable call within the Contact Log.
Can managers use AI Insights?+
Yes, assuming they have the appropriate access. Managers can use the Call Recording Report to review recorded calls and available AI analysis across their teams.
Does AI Insights work with an external phone system?+
Not currently. AI Insights requires recorded calls made through Shape’s built-in native telephony system.
Can AI Insights trigger automation?+
Yes. AI Score results can be incorporated into Shape’s Automated Actions and used as criteria for workflows such as tags, tasks, notifications, status changes, and drip campaigns.
Is AI Insights only useful for sales teams?+
Not at all.
The value of AI Insights is that the analysis can reflect the conversation being reviewed. Sales, customer service, billing, mortgage, insurance, onboarding, and other departments can all have very different use cases.
What’s the difference between AI Insights Starter and Advanced?+
AI Insights provides AI-powered analysis of eligible recorded calls. AI Insights Advanced adds custom AI prompts, allowing the analysis to be tailored much more closely to your organization’s specific departments, processes, coaching goals, and review criteria.
Ready to Get More From Your Call Data?
Call recordings contain a huge amount of information, but they’re only useful if your team has the time to review them.
AI Insights helps bridge that gap by turning conversations into summaries, transcripts, scores, coaching opportunities, and actionable next steps that users and managers can actually work with.
If you already have AI Insights, start by looking at how your team is using the Contact Log and Call Recording Report today. From there, think about what conversations you want analyzed automatically and what information would be most valuable to your different departments.
If you’d like to adjust your automatic processing setup or build more tailored analysis around your team’s actual workflows, contact your Shape account representative or Shape Support.