AI outbound calling compliance in Australia: a plain-English guide

Published 6 October 2026 · Rules checked against legislation and regulator pages on 5 and 6 October 2026 · By Target Digital · 11 minute read

AI outbound calling compliance in Australia comes down to a handful of rules that existed long before AI: consent, the Do Not Call Register, calling hours, what the caller must say, and how you follow up by text. An AI voice agent does not get a lighter set of rules than a person, and in one respect it has to do more: a call that uses a synthetic voice must give the person a way to ask for information, such as pressing a key to reach someone.

This guide is for a business owner who pays for leads and wants them called back fast, not for a lawyer. It covers what the rules say, where they come from, and a checklist to run before an AI agent dials anyone. It is general information, not legal advice. Every rule below links to the legislation or regulator page it comes from, and you should take advice for your own situation.

The short version

• Get express consent on the form. A tick box that says you may call and text about their enquiry, including with an AI assistant. The Do Not Call Register site says completing a web form requesting contact can be express consent, but a specific tick box removes any argument.
• Call inside the permitted hours, in the lead's time zone, not yours.
• Open every call properly: your business name, why you are calling, and a way to reach a person.
• Say it is an AI. No Australian law we found requires it outright, but the government's guidance says people should know when they are interacting with AI, and pretending otherwise invites a misleading-conduct problem.
• End the call the moment they ask, and show a caller ID that can take a call back.
• Texts follow the Spam Act: consent, identify yourself, working unsubscribe.
• Tell people the call is recorded, at the start.
• Keep records of consent, so you can show it later.

Is an AI callback to a lead telemarketing?

ACMA's Statement of Expectations on consent sets out where the line sits. It says telemarketing is any call where at least one of the purposes is to offer, promote or advertise goods and services, and that commercial calls made using an auto-dialler or that use pre-recorded or AI voices are all telemarketing calls. The Do Not Call Register Act 2006 agrees on the voice: it counts a call that involves a recorded or synthetic voice as a voice call, and the Do Not Call Register site says synthetic-voice calls are allowed under the telemarketing rules. The rules regulate how you call, not whether the voice is human.

The same statement draws a line for calls the person asked for: "Calls made by businesses that are requested by a consumer and are made within a reasonable time after the request is made are generally not telemarketing calls." It says calls about appointments, fault rectification and similar are also generally not telemarketing. It then adds the caveat that matters for AI: where a call has more than one purpose, if one of those purposes is to sell or promote goods or services, the call is commercial and must comply with the rules.

So a prompt callback that does only what the person asked, such as booking the quote visit they requested, sits on the safer side of that line. A callback that also pitches an upgrade, promotes other services or tries to sell, or one that arrives weeks later, does not. "Generally" leaves room for argument, and an AI agent repeats its script on every call. Our advice is simple: build every AI callback as if the full telemarketing rules apply, and hold express consent anyway. It costs little, and it means you never have to argue which side of the line a call fell on.

Consent and the Do Not Call Register

You cannot make a telemarketing call to a number on the register unless the account holder or their nominee consented, or the call is an exempt designated call (section 11 of the Act). Under the Act, consent can be express, or reasonably inferred from the person's conduct and your relationship with them (Schedule 2).

Inferred consent is a weak foundation for an AI dialler. ACMA's consumer consent expectations say, about marketing lists, that "if a consumer visits a website or sends an email to a business it is unlikely to constitute consent to inclusion on a marketing list or in a marketing database", and that "The ACMA recommends using express consent". For forms, the Do Not Call Register site says companies can call if you have given express consent, "for example, by completing a web form requesting contact". So a form that asks for contact can work, and the fix sits on your lead form: make the consent specific, as below.

What good consent looks like

• Specific: it names calls and texts, and what they are about.
• Unticked by default: the person ticks it themselves.
• Recorded: you keep the wording, the time, the form and the number.
• Fresh: under the Act, express consent that states no period is taken to be withdrawn after three months. ACMA's statement says consent to receive telemarketing that is more than three months old becomes stale, unless the person agreed to a longer period in the terms.

An example line for a form, to adapt with your adviser: "Yes, [your business] may call and text me about this enquiry, including with an AI assistant. I can opt out at any time."

Permitted calling hours

The Telemarketing and Research Calls Industry Standard 2017 sets the hours for telemarketing calls (section 8). The Federal Register lists the Standard as due to be repealed on 1 April 2027 under the sunsetting rules, so check whether a replacement applies by then. ACMA publishes the same table on its telemarketing page:

The national public holidays listed are New Year's Day, Australia Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, plus a weekday holiday given in lieu of one of them. The hours are measured at the account holder's usual residential address, not at your office. If you are in Brisbane, remember Queensland does not use daylight saving, so in summer a 7.30pm call from Brisbane reaches Sydney and Melbourne at 8.30pm, outside the window. The Standard allows a call outside these hours only if the person has given express consent in advance to receiving that particular call at that time.

This has a practical effect on speed to lead: a 9.15pm Saturday enquiry cannot be rung back by an AI agent, even a minute later. Set the agent to send an acknowledgement and call at the next permitted time, unless the person has asked for a call at that hour.

What the AI must say when the call starts

Section 9 of the Standard requires the caller to give, as soon as the call starts:

• their given name, unless the call is made solely using a recorded or synthetic voice;
• the company or registered business name of the caller's employer, or a name by which the business can be readily identified;
• the name of the person causing the call to be made, if not already mentioned;
• the purpose of the call.

If asked, the caller must immediately give contact details and the details of whoever deals with complaints. Where the call uses a recorded or synthetic voice, section 12 requires a mechanism during the call for the person to request that information, such as pressing a button to talk to an operator.

Two more rules matter for automation. The call must end immediately if the person asks for it to end or otherwise indicates they do not want it to continue (section 13), so the agent must recognise "no thanks" and "stop calling me", not just a hang-up. And caller ID must be enabled, showing a number that can take a return call, which the number must be capable of doing for at least 30 days (section 14).

These rules apply whether or not the number is on the register. ACMA says all telemarketers have to follow them even where they are allowed to call numbers on the Do Not Call Register.

Does an AI caller have to say it is an AI?

As of October 2026 we could not find an Australian law that requires an AI caller to announce that it is an AI. The government's National AI Plan says its approach will continue to build on existing laws, which remain "the foundation" for addressing AI-related risks.

The guidance points one way, though. The government's Guidance for AI Adoption says "People should know when they're interacting with AI". It is guidance, not law.

The binding rule is the Australian Consumer Law ban on misleading or deceptive conduct. The ACCC notes that "It makes no difference whether a business intends to mislead or not." An AI agent that tells a caller it is a person, when asked, is the kind of thing that rule is about. Our view: disclose in the first sentence. A plain "Hi, this is the AI assistant for Smith Plumbing, calling about your quote request" costs nothing, and it avoids an awkward moment if the person asks.

One thing not to mix up: in 2026 ACMA registered a new commercial radio code that requires stations to disclose a synthetic voice hosting a program. It is for broadcasters, not phone calls.

Text message follow-up and the Spam Act

The Spam Act 2003 covers commercial SMS and email, not voice calls. The Act states that a message sent by way of a voice call made using a standard telephone service is not an electronic message. So the call and the follow-up text sit under two different laws.

For texts, ACMA's three rules are:

1. Consent: express or inferred, and you need to be able to show it.
2. Identify: accurately say who the message is from and how to contact you.
3. Unsubscribe: a working way to opt out, honoured within five working days.

There is also a 2026 change. From 1 July 2026, a text sent with a business name at the top, known as a branded sender ID, must have that sender ID registered on ACMA's SMS Sender ID Register. Messages from a name that is not registered may arrive labelled "Unverified". ACMA says the rules do not apply to texts sent from phone numbers instead of a branded sender ID. If your follow-up texts arrive as "Unverified", that is the likely reason.

Recording AI calls

Most AI calling systems record and transcribe every call. Under the federal Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, interception consists of listening to or recording a call as it passes over the network without the knowledge of the person making it, so a recording the person has been told about is on firmer ground. State laws also apply and differ. Queensland's Invasion of Privacy Act 1971 does not prohibit a party to a private conversation from recording it, but it limits what that party can later do with the recording (section 45). Other states and territories, such as New South Wales with its Surveillance Devices Act 2007, have their own laws with different rules, so check where your leads live. The simple practice that works everywhere is to say, at the start, that the call is recorded.

The Privacy Act, and the change on 10 December 2026

If your business is covered by the Privacy Act, APP 7 governs direct marketing, including a simple way to opt out. The OAIC's direct marketing guidance notes that APP 7 does not apply to communications covered by the Do Not Call Register Act or the Spam Act, which have their own rules. Many small businesses with turnover of $3 million or less are exempt from the Privacy Act, but not all: health service providers, for example, are covered regardless of size. The OAIC's small business page explains the exceptions.

From 10 December 2026, APP entities must include information in their privacy policy where they have arranged for a computer program to make, or do something substantially and directly related to making, a decision that could reasonably be expected to significantly affect a person's rights or interests, using their personal information. The OAIC published new resources on this on 30 September 2026. An AI agent that only answers questions and books a time may not reach the "significantly affect" threshold. One that decides who gets offered a service, or on what terms, is more likely to. If you are covered by the Act, review your privacy policy before December.

What getting it wrong costs

For calling a number on the register without consent, the penalty is set in penalty units under section 25 of the Do Not Call Register Act. For a company with no prior record, the maximum is 100 penalty units per contravention, and up to 2,000 in total for contraventions on the same day. ASIC lists the Commonwealth penalty unit at $364 for offences on or after 1 July 2026, so by our arithmetic that is up to $36,400 per call and $728,000 per day. Penalty values are indexed, and the maximum is higher for a company with a prior record, so check the current figures.

ACMA does use its powers. In July 2026 it announced that TAB had paid more than $2.7 million in penalties for spam and telemarketing breaches. Between February 2024 and June 2025, ACMA found, TAB made telemarketing calls to VIP customers that included 351 calls to numbers on the register without consent, 82 calls outside permitted hours, and nearly 4,000 calls without properly identifying itself as the caller and/or the purpose of the call. That last item is the one an AI agent can repeat thousands of times a day if its opening script is wrong.

Checklist: can my AI agent call this lead?

1. Did the person give express consent that covers calls and texts, less than three months ago, unless the consent states a longer or ongoing period?
2. If not, is the number on the Do Not Call Register? If it is, do not call.
3. Is it within permitted hours where the person lives, and not a Sunday or a national public holiday?
4. Does the agent open with our business name, the purpose of the call and the fact that it is an AI?
5. Can the person reach a human, or get our contact details, during the call?
6. Does the agent end the call as soon as the person says they do not want it?
7. Is caller ID on, with a number people can ring back for at least 30 days?
8. Does the agent say the call is recorded?
9. Do follow-up texts carry consent, our identity, a working opt-out, and a registered sender ID if they use our name?
10. Are we keeping the consent record, the call recording and the opt-outs somewhere we can find them?

Questions to ask any AI calling provider

Whoever builds your system, these questions separate a careful provider from a fast one:

• How does the agent handle calling hours across time zones, and enquiries that arrive outside them?
• What does the agent say in its first 15 seconds, and can we approve the script?
• How does it recognise a request to stop, and does that number get suppressed?
• Where is the consent record stored, and can we export it?
• Where are recordings and transcripts stored, and for how long?

We built our AI Outbound Call Engine around speed, and speed is only worth having if the call is one you are allowed to make. The reasons are in our guide to speed to lead, and the costs are in our lead generation pricing comparison.

AI outbound calling compliance: common questions

Is outbound AI calling legal in Australia?

We found no ban on AI voices making calls, and the Do Not Call Register site says synthetic-voice calls are allowed under the telemarketing rules. The same rules apply as for a person: consent or a number not on the register, permitted hours, identifying the business and purpose, ending the call on request, and caller ID.

Is AI cold calling legal in Australia?

Calling people who have not asked to hear from you, to sell or promote something, is telemarketing, and the Act covers calls with a synthetic voice. You cannot call numbers on the Do Not Call Register without consent, and every call must follow the Industry Standard.

What hours can telemarketers call in Australia?

Weekdays 9am to 8pm and Saturdays 9am to 5pm, at the person's usual residential address. No calls on Sundays or national public holidays, unless the person has expressly agreed in advance to that particular call.

Do I need consent to call someone who filled in my form?

Treat it as yes. ACMA says a call the person requested, made within a reasonable time, is generally not telemarketing, but a call that also sells or promotes is commercial. It also says a website visit or email alone is unlikely to be consent, and recommends express consent. A clear tick box on the form that covers calls and texts about the enquiry is the safest answer, and it protects the follow-up text as well.

Next step

If you are about to switch on AI follow-up, or already have and are not sure it would pass the checklist above, book a 30-minute call. We will walk through your form, your calling hours and your opening script, and tell you what we would change. This is general information, not legal advice.

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