Give Your AI a Voice

11 min

Imagine typing:

"Call Priya and ask her if the onboarding report is ready"

Your AI client calls Priya, has the conversation, and comes back with:

"Priya says the report will be ready by 3pm. She's waiting on one number from Finance."

That's what Exotel MCP enables. This guide gets you there in 60 seconds — no installations, no config files. Just paste your credentials and go.

What You'll Need

Three things from your Exotel account:

API Key — from my.exotel.com → Settings → API Settings

API Secret — same page

Account SID — same page

Your Exotel number — from Numbers in the sidebar (e.g. 08046800979)

That's it. You don't need to know what Base64 encoding is. You don't need to touch a terminal.

Step 1 — Paste This into Your AI Client

Open Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible AI client and send this message — fill in your actual values:

Set up Exotel MCP for me.

My Exotel credentials:
- API Key: [YOUR_API_KEY]
- API Secret: [YOUR_API_SECRET]
- Account SID: [YOUR_ACCOUNT_SID]
- Exotel number: [YOUR_NUMBER, e.g. 08046800979]
- API domain: https://api.in.exotel.com

Please install mcp-remote via npm if needed, update the MCP config with these credentials, and tell me when I need to restart.

Globally-hosted accounts: If your dashboard is at my.exotel.com (not my.in.exotel.com), use https://api.exotel.com as the API domain instead.

The AI will:

Run npm install -g mcp-remote if needed

Build your Base64 token from the key and secret

Write the correct config block to your MCP settings file

Tell you exactly when to restart

Step 2 — Restart Your AI Client

Once the AI says it's done, restart the client completely (quit and reopen).

After restarting, you should see Exotel tools available. In Claude Desktop, look for the 🔧 icon in the chat input.

Step 3 — Make Your First Agentic Call

Type this:

Call +91XXXXXXXXXX and ask them if they're available for a quick catch-up tomorrow

That's it. The AI calls the number, a VoiceBot conducts the conversation, and the AI comes back with what the person said.

What Just Happened

Your AI client is now connected to your Exotel account. It can:

Make calls — place outbound calls, have a VoiceBot carry the conversation, return the answer

Send SMS — single messages or bulk

Pull transcripts — from any VoiceBot call

Check call status — look up any call by number or SID

Run quality analysis — on call recordings

All through plain language. No API calls, no code.

If Something Didn't Work

Tools not showing after restart Run npm list -g mcp-remote to confirm the install succeeded. If it's missing, run npm install -g mcp-remote and retry.

Authentication error Ask your AI client: "Show me the current Exotel MCP config" — it will show you exactly what's in the file so you can spot any typo.

Not sure which API domain to use Check your Exotel dashboard URL. my.in.exotel.com → use https://api.in.exotel.com. my.exotel.com → use https://api.exotel.com.

More detail in Troubleshooting →

Want to Understand What Was Set Up?

Quick Start → — the same setup, step by step, with explanations of what each piece does.

Questions? developer.exotel.com/api/exotel-mcp-server | Exotel Support