Keyword Spotting
Detect specific words and phrases during live calls and alert supervisors in real time.
Keyword Spotting monitors live call audio for specific words or phrases and triggers alerts the moment they are detected. It uses streaming speech recognition powered by Deepgram to process audio in real time, giving supervisors immediate visibility into what is being said on calls.
How It Works
- When a call starts, VoiceCenter streams the audio to a speech recognition engine.
- The engine converts speech to text in real time.
- The text is checked against your configured keyword rules.
- If a keyword match is found, an alert is delivered instantly.
Prerequisites
Keyword Spotting requires three gates to be active:
| Gate | Description |
|---|---|
| Deepgram API Key | A valid Deepgram API key must be configured in the environment (DEEPGRAM_API_KEY) |
| Tenant Feature Flag | The feature must be enabled for your tenant by an administrator |
| Active Keyword Rules | At least one keyword rule must exist and be enabled |
If any gate is missing, calls proceed normally without keyword detection. There is no impact on call quality or reliability.
Creating a Keyword Rule
Navigate to Operations and select Keyword Spotting
Open Operations from the navigation and click Keyword Spotting.
Click Create Rule
Click the Create Rule button to open the keyword rule form.
Define the keywords
Enter one or more keywords or short phrases to detect. Each keyword is matched independently.
Field Description Required Rule Name A descriptive label for this rule Yes Keywords Words or phrases to detect (one per line) Yes Severity Low, Medium, or High — affects alert priority Yes Alert Recipients Users or groups who receive the alert Yes Save and enable
Save the rule and toggle it to Active. The rule begins monitoring new calls immediately.
Example Use Cases
| Use Case | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Compliance monitoring | "guarantee", "promise", "no risk" |
| Escalation detection | "supervisor", "manager", "complaint" |
| Competitor mentions | competitor brand names |
| Cancellation risk | "cancel", "refund", "close my account" |
| Upsell opportunities | "upgrade", "additional", "more features" |
Alert Delivery
When a keyword is detected, an alert is delivered through:
- WebSocket notification that appears in the supervisor's notification bell in real time.
- The alert includes the keyword matched, the agent name, the call ID, and a timestamp.
Supervisors can use the alert to join the call via Team Monitor for live listen-in or whisper coaching.
Managing Rules
- Enable / Disable — Turn a rule on or off without deleting it.
- Edit — Change keywords, severity, or recipients at any time.
- Delete — Remove a rule permanently.
Keyword Spotting processes audio in real time and requires a working Deepgram integration. Without a valid API key, the feature stays dormant and no audio is streamed externally.
Privacy and Data Handling
Audio is streamed to Deepgram for real-time transcription only. VoiceCenter does not store the full transcript from keyword spotting sessions. Only the matched keyword events (keyword, timestamp, call ID) are persisted for alerting and audit purposes.