---
title: "How CallWhiz AI handles interruptions and end-of-turn"
description: "CallWhiz AI decides interruption and end-of-turn from how the caller's voice actually ends, so the agent stops when interrupted, waits through a mid-thought pause, and ends the call cleanly."
url: "https://callwhiz.ai/docs/turn-taking"
updated: "2026-09-21"
---


# How CallWhiz AI handles interruptions and end-of-turn

A CallWhiz AI agent stops the moment a caller interrupts it and treats a mid-thought pause as a pause rather than a finished turn. End-of-turn is an acoustic decision tuned for phone audio, not a fixed silence timer or a keyword list.

**In short:** Interruption and end-of-turn are decided from how the caller’s voice actually ends, which is what makes a phone conversation feel like a conversation.

## Definitions

- **End-of-turn:** The moment a caller has finished speaking and expects a reply. CallWhiz AI decides it from how the voice trails off.
- **Barge-in:** The caller speaking while the agent is speaking. The agent stops and listens. A one-word backchannel is gated so it does not derail a sentence.
- **Backchannel:** A short acknowledgement a listener makes without taking the turn, such as “uh-huh” or “right”.

## What it does

- Interrupt it mid-sentence and it stops to listen, the way a person does.
- When you talk over it, its own voice drops out of your way instead of competing with you.
- A pause mid-thought is treated as a pause, not as your turn ending. It waits instead of talking over the end of your sentence.
- If a call goes silent it re-engages once, and ends the call cleanly rather than holding an empty line.
- If the caller says goodbye, the call ends there. No last word after the farewell.

## How it works

End-of-turn is an acoustic decision, how the voice trails off, rather than a fixed silence timer or a keyword list, with barge-in gated so a one-word backchannel does not derail a sentence. Turn-taking is tuned for phone audio specifically, which behaves nothing like a laptop microphone.

## Related questions

**How does CallWhiz AI handle interruptions?** A CallWhiz AI agent stops speaking when the caller interrupts it mid-sentence, drops its own voice out of the way when talked over, and treats a mid-thought pause as a pause rather than the end of the caller's turn. End-of-turn is an acoustic decision based on how the caller's voice trails off, not a fixed silence timer or a keyword list.

**What does the agent do if the line goes silent?** If a call goes silent, a CallWhiz AI agent re-engages once and then ends the call cleanly rather than holding an empty line. If the caller says goodbye, the call ends there, with no last word after the farewell.

## Related

- [How CallWhiz AI agents sound like a person on the phone](https://callwhiz.ai/docs/sounds-like-a-person)
- [How CallWhiz AI hands a call over to a person](https://callwhiz.ai/docs/handover)